Our first big day as tourists! We put on some serious miles. After hanging out in Guri’s Bar the night before we may have been a little slower than normal, but we stepped up our game and had a great day.
We took our first ride on the Korean subway, pretty much what one would expect from a subway, very clean, busy, and full of all kinds of people. Our first stop was Busan Tower. Mount Yongdu Park, named for Mount Yongdu (Dragons Head), surrounds the tower and includes a monument to Admiral Yi Sun-sin. Admiral Yi was the greatest South Korean military commander of all time. With his brilliant naval maneuvers he is credited with saving the Korean people from Japanese invasion in 1592. Prior to that he was actually arrested for disobeying orders but released by the king after the Japanese had destroyed all but 13 of 133 Korean Naval vessels. Credited with inventing the Turtle Ship, an iron clad vessel, he used them to harass Japanese supply lines. The grounds were full of beautiful landscaping and a huge bell that is only rang on 4 important occasions including New Years Day and a flower clock.
Busan Tower is 120 Meters high and provides a wonderful view of the Busan South Port and the surrounding mountains and city. Sarah was thrilled to find a penny smashing machine and added a penny of Busan Tower to her collection!
After visiting Busan Tower we headed to the Jagalchi Fish Market. This is the countries largest fish market. It was full of all kinds of awesome sea creatures and elderly women. These women could skin live eel in about 5 seconds!! They sold everything, octopus, crab, all sorts of fish, eels, tuna, shrimp, prongs, squid, snails, shell fish, abalone and some things I will probably never know. There are restaurants above the fish market. Jake, Sarah and Takayla enjoyed a fresh crab and some Hite. It was delicious and served with Kimchi and not the hot butter American’s are used to. If one can get past the fishy smell it is quite a site to see.
After the fish market it was off to the other side of the market area. This place was scary. I have never seen so much junk in one place. Clothes, 4 billion pairs of socks, jewelery, purses, electronics, etc. An unbelievable amount of junk! With all this stuff we found nothing!!! It was truly overwhelming.
We headed back to Takayla’s at about 8:30 and CRASHED! I woke up with the Pig Flu and will have to sit in quarantine for the remainder of the trip.
Check out our pictures of the day!
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