On our own again...

We said goodbye to Ella in the Taipei airport and flew to Busan, South Korea's second city, wondering if the Chinese influence would still prevail. Soon we realized that Korea has its own ways starting by the fact that it's harder to find stuff written in English.
We arrived quite late and hungry at our accommodation in Busan and after naively trying to get some food in what seemed like a lively road in the neighborhood (Texas Street) that turned out to be a very seedy road full of prostitutes bars and cheap motels, we end up eating at the local burger chain, Lotteria.
Despite this false start, we totally loved Busan! On the first day we headed towards the Children's Grand Park searching for some amusement for Flora. Giving some credit to it's name, the park is enormous, located in one of the city's many hills. It has a children's learning center, beautiful little streams of fresh water, many restaurants, a zoo and a set of interesting playgrounds with picnic tables by a big

reservoir. However, perhaps because it was Monday, there was almost no children and the zoo was closed! Instead, about 90% of the people we passed by were the elderly. The park was populated with old men and women walking around, having picnics and a chat, or just snoozing, taking advantage of the tranquility and beauty of the park.
At night we went for dinner to the famous fish market. On the port, the market was a vast complex of fish mongers stalls, hundreds of them, where the fish, crabs, prawns, lobsters, clams of all kinds, squids, octopuses, eels, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and sea snails were alive in tanks for us to choose from and eat on the restaurants upstairs. Flora was not impressed when one of the fish escaped from its

tank and, on the floor just in front of her, frenetically struggled to breath until it was put back in water by the monger. This was just an indication of what was about to happen. The stew we ordered was brought to the table on a gas ring with a live scallop, which left us feeling uncomfortable. As we tried to come to terms with this, the chef came out to our table with a live octopus clinging to his arm, the condiments and anything else that it could grab hold of. With the help of the waitress they finally wrestled the octopus into the pot. We were stunned! Actually, to eat small octopus alive as an appetizer is a local delicacy.
When Cat suggested to visit Busan's cultural village on the following day and showed us a couple of pictures on the internet, we realized that it was the interesting looking neighborhood we could see in the distance from the port. Gamecheon cultural village is a special place. This lego-like former slum sat on a coastal hill, is an authentic maze of tiny steep alleyways through colourful houses, murals, art installations, super cute cafes and shops, that caught our hearts and made this one of the best days of our journey. We could collect stamps in strategic places in the village which kept Flora interested in the "adventure" throughout the day. We also had coffee in this hidden little amazing cafe full of vinyl and pictures drawn by tourists from all over the world (Flora obviously added one more to the vast collection), whose owner picked an old Amalia record as soon as he realized

Pedro was Portuguese. We also had a delicious, and cheap, lunch at a local restaurant where we all added messages in sticking notes to the wall, and a beer towards the end of the afternoon on a cafe that had this work in progress installation where clients could colour little wooden houses that recreated the village itself. Flora, once again, revealed her most artistic side. Gamecheon also gave us the chance to experience and closely observe the real life of a Korean neighborhood and at the same time, reminded us about how art, creativity and political action can transform a once poor and depleted agglomerate of houses into an interesting, vibrant and inspiring place.
We absolutely loved it!