Jagalchi, Busan

 

That's us waiting for the train and mesmerized by the uber cool Seoul Station. We can travel from Seoul to Busan in various ways, such as by plane, train and bus. For travelling by train itself there are several options. They have KTX which is the express train, and Mugunghwa, the older train which we selected for its lower price. When I say old, it's not really old. It looked good and ran fast, but that's not all. Guess what?!! They have vending machine, massage chairs and rooms to sing karaoke in some of the units. Imagine the luxury of a express train and the premier class.

And I kinda don't understand the culture there. We took the last train on Friday night, which was 10.30pm and going to reach Busan at 4am. The train stops at various stations so MANY Koreans take the train as well. The aisle was so full with people standing and playing phones. Some of them stood for ... maybe 3 hours before reaching their destination. If they are lucky enough they might be able to sit on the floor or take the seats when people left.
We bought earlier so we managed to grab seats for ourselves, but in fact the difference in price for seats and free staing was only a few thousand Won (RM20 perhaps?). Imagine standing for 3 hours in a moving train, overnight.

Jagalchi Market (자갈치시장)

We arrived Busan at 4 something before dawn and waited at the train station like a group of sleepy vagabonds until the train started working.
Jagalchi Market is a fish market in Busan, and the largest seafood market in Korea. We made it our first stop  in Busan.

It seemed to be real bright here but in fact it was only 6 something in the morning and some ahjummas were working hard to set up their businesses. Of course, their businesses were either selling live seafood or little seafood eateries.

Some giant clamps and enormous crabs. 

Their little restaurants were simple, kind of like eating at home and traditional.

 

The quiet street, spectacular stacked houses as the background and Busan milk. Wee~

These are little eateries. Interestingly all stalls sell almost the same food. We asked and it costs W10,000 per person (~RM 30) to have a seafood feast.

I bet the chillies are really inexpensive there. This is fried squid with chilli paste, chillies and chillies.

I could feel how the locals lived and connect with their daily lives by visiting their traditional markets. We just got to meet ordinary people, in fact mainly old folks, the less busy and less fashionable people. And we had seen the other side of the country which is not as modern, man-made and clean as we saw in Seoul. 

So what? Perfection lies in imperfection.