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We landed in Busan from Fukuoka ready to experience as much as we could in two short days. It was New Year’s Eve day and we had lots of ground to cover so we arranged with our hotel, the Park Hyatt Busan, for a large van to transfer there and drop our bags as it was too early to check in. The hotel is located in Marine City, the newest and most luxurious part of the city, but it is very inconvenient to any attractions in the older part of the city requiring at least 30 minutes whether by taxi or subway. The hotel is a glistening glass tower set among what seems like thousands of other residential towers.

More on the hotel later as our first order of business was lunch. My oldest son was tasked with choosing a restaurant and he quickly came up with a very highly rated spot located close to the hotel. We set out on foot, navigated to the second floor of an office complex and found our way to Dongbaek Samgyetang which specializes in Ginseng Chicken, an iconic Korean dish consisting of a stuffed chicken simmered in ginseng infused broth. The restaurant was filled with both chicken and baseball paraphernalia which was quite curious, at least to me.

I happily dined on delicious tuna onigiri and banchan while the rest of the guys were slurping their generous portions of soup. The staff was very efficient yet courteous, happy to welcome Americans diners which I am betting is a rarity.

Following lunch it was off to meet our guide Heeyoung for a food tour of the famed Jagalchi Fish Market as well as exploring and tasting other specialties of Busan. I found Heeyoung, a cool and very accomplished local chef, on Viator; but I am getting a little ahead of myself.

Since we were five people we split up into two Ubers to get to the market and this is where my son and I first determined that Busan has the worst drivers we have ever encountered.

Our driver (an elderly man) set off at a very accelerated pace and seemed competent enough, but as we entered a lengthy tunnel on our way to the fish market he promptly fell asleep and hit the side wall of the tunnel we were driving through causing damage to the taxi; luckily we were wearing our seatbelts so we escaped injury, but the crash was loud and the side of the car was very scraped. All the cars behind him, including my husband and son’s Uber had to slam on the brakes to avoid a pile up. Our driver suddenly woke up, shook his head as though he had no idea what happened while my son and I yelled at him to pull. The language barrier was not helping here, but finally he grasped the urgency in our voices and slowed down enough for us to get out.

I honestly don’t believe he had any idea what happened, but would certainly find out when he finally exited his car. A quick call to both my husband to assure him we were ok as well as to Uber to get us another car (and report the driver) threw us off our schedule a little, but we were grateful to be in one piece.

Lest you think I was making a sweeping generalization, throughout our stay in Busan we found that every single driver we had was absolutely terrible with no ability to competently accelerate, decelerate or change lanes. Each time we got into a car we said a little prayer and thankfully there were no further accidents.

Putting our accident behind us we finally met up with Heeyoung and the rest of our family along with two others in our group and were ready to start the tour. Jalgachi is the biggest fish market in Korea and specializes literally in every type of fish you have every dreamt of, both alive and dead.

Walking the aisles is truly a bit nightmarish seeing tank after tank of squirming creatures but you slowly became accustomed to it. Most of the vendors are older women dressed in bright pink smocks and the juxtaposition is striking.

Heeyoung took us to a fishmonger who she said was quite reputable. A fun aspect of the sprawling market is that you can choose your fish and then have it prepared for you on the second floor of the building for a fee, which is what we planned to do later that evening hoping it would make for a memorable NYE celebration. Keep in mind that in Korea it was not NYE, they celebrate the lunar New Year later in January so for them it was just business as usual. We told the fish man we would return and then went to sample some other specialties in the area surrounding the market.

Our first taste outside the market were homemade skewered fish cakes in broth (spicy or not spicy) that were truly delicious. There is a battle among different stalls over whose fish cakes are the best, but Heeyoung assured us that these ladies’ offerings featured the highest quality ingredients. We all sampled the spicy with a couple of us opting for a second serving.

Next stop was BIFF square, the main venue for the Busan International Film Festival and currently home to scores of food stalls. One of the most famous (and delectable) street snacks is Seed Hotteok a sweet fried pancake that is cut open and stuffed with nuts, seeds and sugar. There are many places to sample this delicacy but I can only attest to the cart we visited which had a very long line snaking around it. Thankfully Heeyoung was able to sneak her way to the front and procure a few for us without a wait. We could see what all the fuss is about, these snacks were irresistible!

Our next stop was a stall a bit further away from the market in a retail area that had shop after shop of counterfeit designer goods; if you were in the market you could find Moncler, Gucci, Goyard, Celine, and Hermes copies in tremendous supply. We were concentrating on eating, but there are a lot of fakes walking around Busan, of that I am sure.

We enjoyed a varied feast which included cabbage pancakes, dumplings, huge rice cakes and gimbap (Korean sushi). The woman running this stall had thought of everything including rolls of toilet tissue to use as napkins.

Our last stop was at a family run business that sells all sorts of Misagaru, powdered mixtures that Korean families swear by to stay healthy. We sampled one of the multi-grain powders mixed with warm milk, it was sort of like hot chocolate but much earthier, and packed with vitamins and minerals. Sadly it was only sold in very large bags so we weren’t able to bring home a sample, but I was told we can purchase it in the US as well.

We continued working our way through the stalls, pausing to admire the incredible array of Kimchi offerings along the way.

It was finally time to say farewell and Happy New Year to Heeyoung and the other attendees on our tour, and head back to Jalgachi for our NYE feast.

When we arrived back at the market it was close to 7pm. We went right back to our new friend and ordered up a giant crab similar to the one in the photo above (from Russia) as well as a medium sized Yellowtail which was at peak season, or so we were told. He threw in some scallops which were a gift due to the extravagance of the crab. We paid for the fish at the stall and then he directed us upstairs where we were seated and were able to order drinks (lots of Korean beer) and specify how we wanted our fish prepared. As you might expect there was a set price for everything. The crab was to be steamed, the Yellowtail was to be divided up, half was to be grilled, half was to be cut into sashimi and the head would be made into soup. The scallops would be steamed.

It turns out that our table could barely hold all of this feast! First to arrive was the grilled Yellowtail which was delicious. Second to arrive was the sashimi which was not at all like Japanese sashimi, it was very very tough; which we had been told would be the case by Heeyoung, but didn’t really believe it. Because the Yellowtail had been “slaughtered” just moments before serving the muscles were still seized up from the shock and thus it was very chewy; suffice it to say I am going to stick with Japanese sashimi in the future. The scallops meanwhile were tender and delicate earning a thumbs up from all of us.

The mountain of crab came next, it was incredibly meaty but my husband immediately tasted ammonia, as did one of my sons. I was thankfully oblivious, but after googling ammonia in crab they convinced themselves that we were victims of a classic bait and switch, the fish monger swapped out a dead crab for the live one we had seen him with and that was the cause of the peculiar taste. I did my own investigating and believe it was due to the age of the crab, but whatever the reason the crab was “tainted”. The fish head soup was a bigger success, though by that point we were pretty full.

We settled up at the fish market, called two Ubers and hoped for the best before we got in and headed towards the Hyatt. We all arrived there unscathed and looked forward to finally checking out our rooms. Judging from the outside we expected the inside to be very modern, but in all actuality it was quite uninspired, that is except for the view. We booked a suite and found they layout to be a bit awkward, but as I mentioned, the view was the consolation.

When we finally raised the shades in the bedroom to experience the view we felt a little better. Full glass on two sides, it was stunning.

We kept the blinds up throughout the night and when morning came we got an entirely new perspective on the view. We were even able to watch the boats heading out to sea to witness the first sunrise of the New Year, a Korean tradition.

Breakfast at the Hyatt was a bit of a madhouse, there were two dining rooms on two different floors but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to who was directed where. There were many options, and the chefs were hard at work behind glass creating new dishes to put out. It was all fine, but not spectacular.

We had reserved a day in Busan to shop as Shingsae Centum City, the world’s largest luxury department store which was located nearby to our hotel. I had put off all of my luxury shopping to visit this enormous store, but I failed to take into account that even though Korea doesn’t celebrate New Years on January 1, they would shut down for the day. Not to be a brat, but I sort of threw a mini fit.

It turns out that most things were closed on January 1, though we found a few small shopping malls open around the city, though it was not quite what I was hoping for. No worries, I bounced back from my bad mood as we were still heading to Seoul the following day, I would have another chance.

In one of the shopping malls we visited we happened upon a fish restaurant that prided itself on its quality and sustainable practices, so we stopped there for a bite. It was actually very good.

We continued exploring the city on foot managing to get about 25,000 steps in. We wandered through many varieties of neighborhoods and can safely say that we were missing the cleanliness and civility of Japan.

When dinner time came around we were excited to try true Korean BBQ at Haeundae Ilpum Hanwoo. We had been told all of the executives and movie stars that visit Busan stop for a meal at Ilpum Hanwoo, and judging by the plethora of photos in the lobby this seems to be the case.

We were quickly seated and the parade of dishes started making their way to our table. I did not have much of a say in the ordering, all I know was there was an extensive selection of meats coming our way; I contentedly watched the spectacle with an assortment of kimchi and grilled mushrooms. Somewhat disappointingly the bulk of the cooking was done by the wait staff, along with constant encouragement to eat more. I believe they didn’t realize I wasn’t a meat eater and instead thought I didn’t like it.

This meal was very filling, and the meat was of a high quality. Thankfully we did not smell of grease and meat and need to be sprayed down like we did in Fukuoka!

The guys were all suffering from the meat sweats so we walked back to the hotel for an early night as we were booked on the 8 am train to Seoul the next morning.

We had first dibs at breakfast at 6:30 am, this time trying out the offerings in the other dining room; same dishes, different location.

The hotel arranged for a large taxi to bring us to the train and we were on our way. We were excited to explore Seoul and glad we had a chance to visit Busan, secure in the knowledge that we don’t need to return.

Stay tuned for a report from Seoul!