On our final day in Gyeongji we wanted to go out for the famed Korean BBQ. I looked up some reviews and found a restaurant called Judon that boasts a rare perfect 5/5 score from 39 reviews. We used Google translate to let the waiter know that we were newbies and he set to work on showing us how to grill our pork belly, cheek, and neck, then which sauce combinations to use. Even though I am not a big meat eater it was so good that we had to order another round of pork belly. Suffice it to say that the restaurant now has 40 perfect reviews.
We made our way south to the metropolis of Busan, Korea’s 2nd largest city. It is a sprawling city with a good metro system. We enjoyed exploring the skinny walkways and streets of the colourful Gamcheon Culture Village.
The Igidae Coastal Walk was a great way to spend a sunny afternoon. We had great views of the turquoise ocean and the city skyline.
My highlight of Busan was Samgwangsa Temple, which was lit up with 40,000 lanterns in preparation for Buddha’s birthday.
Because of the birthday holiday weekend we didn’t see any accommodations in Seoul that matched our shoestring budget, so we decided to do something from my bucket list that wouldn’t really appeal to RobO… stay at a jjimjilbang. These are public 24 hour bath houses that have a variety of hot pools, saunas, scrub-down options, and resting/sleeping areas. If you’ve been a longtime blog reader you may remember that RobO and I are not newbies in the bath house experience, but Korea adds another layer (or maybe I should say ‘takes off another layer’??) from my previous experiences. The place is divided by gender and the baths are FULLY naked. It only took a few minutes for Dee and I to shed our prudish cultural upbringings and feel pretty normal about hanging out (literally) in our birthday suits… for like, 5 hours.
We had no idea what to expect with the sleepover part of it, but it was… an experience. We were given these orange pyjamas that made us feel like we were on Orange is the New Black, and we laid on the heated floor of the sleeping room with a hard foam block for a pillow. When we went to ‘bed’ it seemed pretty organized, with women laying around the outside of the room, but when I woke up in the night I quickly realized that it had become a free-for-all, with people EVERYWHERE! There were women on either side of me like sausages in a pan and if I stretched my legs out straight I was kicking someone. I’m sure you can deduce that it wasn’t my *greatest* sleep, but I sure felt better after some early morning naked hot tub/sauna/scrubbing time with Dee! You’re welcome, RobO, for checking this one off the list without you!
We’re in wall-to-wall traffic (holiday weekend!), heading to the coast for some more hiking and eats. I’ll leave you with some more delicious food pics, as it has been so great to taste so many different dishes.
