Week 4: Busan & Gyeongju, South Korea

Busan
We entered South Korea by way of ferry from Fukuoka, Japan. Our ferry – the Biitorou (pronounced “Beetle”) - is the fast boat. We overtook the slower Camilla Line, which had left port a couple of hours earlier, as we approached Busan's harbor. Boarding and disembarking the ferry was a breeze – until we passed our luggage through the x-ray machines on the final stage of customs and were escorted aside by Korean officials.

Colin had been gifted a pair of Samurai swords by our last couchsurfing host in Japan. We'd wrapped them up in a sleep sack and strapped them to Tom's pack in the ferry terminal, wondering if the U.S. would let us bring them in. Doesn't look like we'll get the chance to find out, as Korean customs promptly impounded them upon arrival – no “knives” longer than 10 cm permitted. Now, I KNOW you can get swords in Korea, but that is apparently irrelevant when it comes to crossing international borders. After some discussion, customs agreed that they could transfer the swords to the Seoul airport for Tom to pick up upon departure – for a fee. Colin's disappointment was intense and palpable – we had to shuffle him away from the customs officials before it turned to outrage, so we wouldn't get hit with a fine on top of it all. We were ushered out of customs with official-looking paperwork on our impounded items, and instructions on where to find the customs office when we got to the airport. A couple of days later, we received an email letting us know that we would have to electronically transfer funds to cover a licensing fee, transport costs, VAT tax and storage deposit in order for the swords to be transferred to Incheon Airport. A quick eBay search indicated that we might break even on their value, but most likely not. AND we still didn't know if the U.S. would allow them in, so we might just be throwing our money away. Sigh. We're still trying to get a response to whether they'll just ship them to the U.S. for us instead, or at least send them back to Japan for our host to retrieve – I hate the thought of them gathering dust in a closet somewhere in the Port of Busan, or worse, decorating some customs official's bathroom wall....

We finally made our way out of customs and on to the nearby subway to find our guest house for the night. We had my hand drawn map and directions copied from the Zen Backpacker's web site.
It was a bit of a hike on both ends, but after circling and staring up at the huge building the directions led us to, we found the right entrance to the building and took the specified elevator up to the 15th floor. The Zen turned out to be a private apartment, whose tenant had turned it into a travelers' guest house to cover the costs of living there. It was gorgeous! Floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city and the surrounding hills, and four roomy bedrooms: three outfitted with multiple bunk beds and one occupied by our host. We also had access to two bathrooms and a fully equipped kitchen, with breakfast fixings and free wi-fi included in the rate. We got out for dinner that night, but the next day, Tom and Colin couldn't be pulled out of the apartment until nearly 5 p.m.! Colin really did need a down-time day after our three week whirlwind through Japan and into Korea, so I let it go – we couldn't have asked for a better place to be lazy. After that one day as lounge lizards, we were once again off and running to see the city.

I had feared that Busan might be a seedy Port city, but not at all. It is a dynamic, intriguing mix of ultra-modern and still traditional commerce and architecture. Street vendors and food carts line densely packed streets, while neon light shows electrify the city's buildings and bridges at night. A string of beaches front onto the South Sea (aka East China Sea), straddling the passage between the Sea of Japan and the Yellow (West) Sea. The food was incredible – as a long time Japanese food junkie, I was surprised to find that Korean cuisine blows Japan's out of the water!
Hoejeon is the Korean version of sashimi, but SO much more diverse, with an extra dose of weird thrown in for good measure. The spices are intense (not an endorsement in everyone's book, but definitely in mine), and the variety of tastes and small dishes served with each meal give every eating experience such diversity and variety that you cant help but find something you like on the table! And finally, the prices make it all an unparalleled value – wow.
Our meals in Busan included a feast of raw and grilled fish at simple, low tables above the central fish market (made more fun by an impromptu lesson in drinking customs and etiquette by a diner at a neighboring table); a meal of grilled pork, onions and mushrooms cooked on a grill set into our table and served with soft tofu soup and dozens of side dishes, which we enjoyed with fellow traveler Meg; a lunch of chicken bulgogi; and dinner at a sidewalk food stall serving up street grilled prawns, clams and some kinda meat (we never did get clear on exactly what kind), along with spicy bean sprout soup and shoju, the local rotgut (tasty and cheap!)

Gyeongju
After eating our way through Busan and sleeping in style at the Zen for three nights, we made our way back to the subway, and headed to the station at the end of the line to catch a bus to Gyeongju. Meg and I had been overlapping since we first met in Tokyo, and she had headed there the day before us, sending along detailed directions on how to find the guest house we had booked.
Sa Rong Chae had come highly recommended by June, our host at the Zen, and with good reason! It was a traditional hanok – a collection of tile-roofed buildings and rooms with sliding rice paper doors set around a central courtyard. Traditionally an extended family compound, this one now hosted travelers from all around the world – there were Japanese and Thai, Germans and Austrians, and a couple of Americans passing through during our stay there. Each evening, the owners - who lived there too - offered a class in Korean arts and crafts or a traditional wooden flute performance, and on Saturday night, they built up a bonfire in the courtyard. Nice.
During our days, we explored the historical and archeological sites the town is famous for – the surreal tumili (earthen mounds serving as tombs for past kings and royal families) scattered around town; the restored palace grounds at Anapji Pond;

the outlying Bulguski Temple, set on a mountain a short bus ride east of the city, and comprised of dozens of temples and shrines housing numerous bronze Buddhas;
and the enormous complex that makes up the Gyeongju National Museum – which we thought would be a two hour visit, but wound up occupying us for an entire day. Each day, we spent several hours walking, wandering from site to site and being in awe of so much that we saw.
And of course, we ate. ;-) Our most memorable meal in Gyeongju was ssambak – an assortment of 28 small dishes ranging from raw spicy oysters and grilled whole fish to marinated mushrooms and several kinds of kimchi, all wrapped in a variety of leafy greens and seaweed. I could easily have stayed in Gyeongju twice as long, but with just two full days left until Tom's flight home, we decided we had to get to Seoul, where Korean bath houses and more food adventures await!....

Kyushu, Japan: Couchsurfing and Hot Springs

Our final week in Japan – notably different from the others....

Couchsurfing

We arrived in Fukuoka/Hakata (one city, two names) by train from Hiroshima. After a transfer and brief ride on the local train, we were picked up at the station by our couchsurfing host. She had her 1 year-old in the back seat of her car, adding Colin and I and our bags before pulling away from the station. Her English was terrific, so communication clearly was going to be easy. Her manner was informal and casual – not typical of the Japanese folks we'd met so far, but very comfortable for us. We drove to her house on the northeast edge of the city, and pulled into her small parking space next to the front door on a busy street. Entering the house, we were once again reassured that we wouldn't be expected to adhere to a strict Japanese formality and propriety – her house was a refreshing tumble of papers and kids' stuff and piles of boxes and assorted brick-a-brack. Entering and passing through the dining/common room, we dropped our bags in a room with a crib piled high with toys and bedding, a table and chair pushed to one side, and a couple of futons folded up at the edge of the remaining space. This was home for the night, and very much like home - ahhhhh.

After settling in and watching Colin pratt-fall and act the clown to make the baby laugh over and over again, our host prepped, cooked and served dinner all on the central dining table – an electric grill, a thick batter, flower-shaped local onions and bits of pork, and we had a meal of delicious okonomiaki, a Japanese savory pancake. Her first son, age 13, arrived home just as we were starting dinner and joined in. Shy about his English, he pulled out a game of video Taiko drumming after eating (like Guitar Hero, but with Taiko Drums!) and plugged it into the TV for Colin to play. What a hit!

Once Colin had gone to bed, our new friend pulled out a bottle of plum-sweetened sake, and started answering my questions about her father (American) – there was a photo of him on the wall, but he wasn't there, and her couchsurfing profile had alluded to a troublesome former partner. Her story was nearly unbelievable, except for the fact that it had been widely reported in all the Japanese newspapers and tabloids: she told me her “partner” had been an intermittently abusive alcoholic who was jailed by the Japanese police after briefly putting their son (the 1-year old) in an outdoor freezer, and later claimed to have no memory of the incident. Holy cow – chalk one up for breaking down the boundaries of Japanese formality!

Tom was scheduled to arrive the next day, and we needed a more private place to stay while he adjusted to Japan and recovered from jetlag, so I planned to book us into an inexpensive hostel or guest house. Our host called a friend – an American living in Fukuoka who she met through the local couchsurfing network – who wound up offering us his place, since he sometimes sleeps at his wife's family home nearby.
It turned into quite the experience – he is one of the was one of the craziest, most overbearing and generous people Ive ever met (that's all good, by the way! - I don't go for 'vanilla' personalities - but you probably knew that). And he's one hell of a cook, to boot.

The space - labeled in the window as a 'Speak Easy' – is his answer to the Japanese tradition of socializing in “izakayas” and his solution to hitting a brick wall every time he invited Japanese friends to his 'house' for BBQ (they would never show up – its unusual to entertain and visit in people's homes). By outfitting the place as a public space, he simultaneously overcame people's resistance to hanging out there and created a less expensive place to spend an evening drinking and playing darts. His world views lean toward the conspiracy-theory variety, but he opens his home and his world with abandon.

We spent the next day exploring Fukuoka, from its temples to the ornate festival floats on display, and eating a fantastic meal at the open air food stalls along the central river.

On our departure, our new host gifted two samurai swords to Colin, which we are not at all sure will make it through Korean and American customs, but they put a huge grin on Colin's face and the gesture warmed my heart. I am looking forward to reading a few of his stories that he gave me on a flash drive to read and edit for him while traveling....

Hot Springs
Our final days in Japan were spent in Hot Springs Central – Beppu and Yufuin, on the east coast of Kyushu, the southern island of “mainland” Japan (Okinawa is further south, but a distance further on and only accessible by air or ferry).
Beppu is known as the hot spring resort capital of Japan, which is saying a lot in a country obsessed with hot springs bathing. I wasn't as charmed by Beppu as some, apparently – despite the view of steam vents rising from throughout the town as we pulled into the station, it had more sprawl than charm, and proved to be the least friendly of the places we'd visited so far. Of course, we did arrive on yet another Japanese holiday weekend, so restaurant and other tourism staff were probably stressed to the max, but that doesn't explain the crossed arms we received from one restaurant indicating we weren't permitted to eat there if we couldn't speak Japanese, or the cat calling, tongue clicking behavior of the businessmen on the street (ick). Our discovery of (1) an ocean-front onsen/rotemburu (inside and outside hot springs bathing) with a view of the twilight-sparkly mountains and (2) an incredibly friendly Italian restaurant saved the evening! Still, we decided not to push our luck, and day-tripped to Yufuin – a hot springs town an hour into the mountains – the next day. Good choice!

Yufuin was wonderful, if crowded with people enjoying the third day of the holiday weekend. Charming streets full of crafts shops and cafes lining the several streams and canals that run through town; an enchanting thatch-roofed onsen on the banks of a small lake with a partially submerged shrine; and many cool food shops selling local honey and sausages (both regionally celebrated), as well as the usual assortment of dried and preserved fish, eels and mountain veggies.
The town itself sits in a bowl ringed by mountains, with vistas of geothermal steam vents scattered throughout the hillsides.
I was disappointed to head back to Beppu on the last bus, but determined to make our second night's experience there better. We arrived back at the bus terminal and immediately headed underground, to the extensive shopping mall under the train tracks – a common arrangement in Japan. We found the food market and browsed the isles for noodles, sushi and fried fish and veggies, carted it all back to our guest house and had a delightful evening eating and chatting with other travelers. Turned out the guest house had not just computer terminals and online access, but also an extensive English-language manga library, giving Colin the chance to recapture his stolen manga kissa experience (see travel blog entry #5: Week 2+). He was up till midnight and in seventh heaven. The return train the next day took us back to Fukuoka, and on to the international ferry to Busan in Korea.

Up next: Korean customs and samurai swords (hint: bad combo)....

Week 2+: Takayama to Hiroshima

Takayama

Week 2 started in Takayama, where we stayed 3 nights at the Zenko-ji Temple, enjoying morning markets along the river, centuries-old homes converted to shops and cafes, and terrific soba (buckwheat) noodles, a regional specialty.
We toured the ancient shogun's headquarters, and day-tripped up into the mountains to Shirakawago, a village of traditional thatch-roofed farmhouses interspersed with rice paddies. The tunnels through the mountains were a feat – how is it that Japan can build car tunnels dozens of miles long while Seattle breaks and loses boring machines for its basic sewage lines?... perhaps we need to consider outsourcing the viaduct replacement to Japan. ;-)

Finally slowing the pace a little was very nice. We couldn't resist all the crafts and goodies in the morning markets and picked up a few gifts and keepsakes before moving on....

Nagoya
The train through the foothills and rice valleys took us to Nagoya – a major transit hub and urban center mid-way between Tokyo and Kyoto. Id never heard of Nagoya before arriving in Japan, but it proved to be an impressive city, with the ultra-modern architecture Japan is famous for, and skyscraper malls with restaurants, bars and bowling alleys reaching dozens of floors above the street. Our only reason for stopping in Nagoya was to indulge Colin's request for spending a night in a Manga Kissa – a 24-hour internet/manga comic book cafe, with individual cubicles (choice of couch or futon), unlimited free soft drinks, cheap vending machine meals, and even showers. They are intended to be used to pass the night if you miss your last train out (trains stop running around midnight), but have become the budget inn of choice for the hard-core backpacker set.
The manga kissa was on the basement level of a 6 story mall, but when we finally arrived – after a very fun night out at an izakaya (informal bar/food joint) – we learned that children need to be out by 11 p.m. Oh, was Colin pissed!! His hopes for an all-nighter of internet gaming and manga comics books dashed in an instant! The rest of the night was a bust, as we searched in the rain for a cheap hotel to get us through 'till our morning train to Kyoto. An emergency Skype call to Tom for a bedtime story about Shoguns and warriors somewhat saved the day/night, but it wasn't quite the same...

Kyoto

As Japanese cities go, my favorite yet! Kyoto is Japan's cultural capital, and we had the benefit of staying at a private home, owned by couchsurfing host extraordinaire Shoji Ishizu. Shoji lives a short distance away, but keeps this house just for couchsurfers – sometimes 8-10 at once. During our stay, we just shared the house with one other couple – New Yorkers teaching English in Korea – or had it to ourselves. Shoji himself was amazing – a farmer by day, he volunteers as both a suicide hotline counselor and mentor for children/teens released from juvenile detention.

We spent our days touring palaces, wandering the open air markets and small streets of the geiko (geisha) district or strolling along the river, and of course, making the requisite daily visit to the International Manga Museum. :-)

We were also there for the full moon – the Harvest Moon (most important of the year) - and joined several hundred people at the Harvest Moon Festival at a shrine in the north of the city – amazing.

Nara

We delayed our departure from Kyoto for a day, but tore ourselves away to get in a visit to nearby Nara – home of an immense temple/shrine complex and more than a dozen UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The temple grounds in Nara are also home to a herd of 1200 deer, believed to be messengers of the gods in pre-Buddist times, and now designated as a Japanese National Treasure.
They are beyond tame.... some are very docile and friendly and will eat out of your hands, while others (the males especially) behave like mobsters – if they've got you in their sights, watch out! Colin got head-butted by one and nipped by another demanding payment (deer biscuits are on sale at every shrine).
Once again, we stayed a night longer than planned, in order to have time to visit the main temple of Toji-ji to view the 40-foot high buddha and try to crawl through the hole the size of the Buddha's nostril at the base of one of the support beams. If you can fit through, you are guaranteed enlightenment - Colin made it; I wasn't about to try (my hips are MUCH wider than your average Japanese woman). ;-)

Hiroshima
We arrived in Hiroshima under threat of a typhoon. After settling into a guest room at the World Friendship Center – a local non-profit that runs peace and disarmament programs internationally – we headed out to tour the Peace Park in hopes of seeing the highlights before the storm arrived.
Despite mounting winds and dark gray clouds, the rains held off until after we'd seen most of the park, including the Peace Monument and Peace Flame (intended to burn until the last nuclear weapon on earth is eliminated), the Children's International Peace Monument (inspired by Sadako Sasaki, a young girl diagnosed with leukemia after the bomb, who strove to fold 1,000 paper cranes in hopes of averting her own death, but died before she could complete them – every year, thousands of paper cranes folded by children around the world are brought to the monument), the Peace Mound, where the ashes of unidentified cremated victims of the bombing are buried, the A-bomb Dome – the preserved ruins of the prefecture administration building nearly at ground zero – and dozens of other statues and memorials to the many, many groups of people who perished at Hiroshima – teachers, students, conscripted laborers, etc., etc. That evening, Colin set out to learn how to fold paper cranes, and the next day we delivered a group of paper cranes of our own to the children's monument after visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Next stop: Fukuoka.... & Tom!