We spent two night at Emiko's place in Beppu, and unfortunately it was constantly raining. We still managed to see a few sights, and got some much needed rest and relaxation.
Emiko making sauce for our katsu lunch
Beppu is famous for its geothermal activity. There are a lot of hot springs, some of which you can swim in and some of which are just for looking at. We visited Chinoike Jigoku (blood pond hell), which has a murky red color. We also tried some local pudding that is cooked using hot spring water and topped with a bitter caramel sauce.
Rainy day at blood pond hell
Pudding steamed in the geothermal vents. David hated it.
After relaxing at Emiko's place for a bit with hot cocoa, we joined some of her co-workers for a conveyor belt sushi dinner. You could order from a screen, and a tiny bullet train brought the sushi to your table! After dinner we did a few hours of karaoke and tried a few new drinks, including various flavors of chuhai.
All aboard the sushi express!
Our karaoke room
Obviously we did Livin on a Prayer
The next day we slept in, then drove to Hiroshima. We didn't get to our hostel until it was dark, but we walked around and saw the peace park at night before eating at a four-story okonimoyaki building and seeing Hiroshima Castle.
Leaving Beppu... the rain finally stopped!
We didn't try this...despite being cheese lovers.
Floor futons! We managed to fit three people in this room. It was like camping!
Okonimoyaki, our first meal in Hiroshima, is like a mix between an omelet and a pancake. Different regions of Japan prepare this dish in different, competing ways. Each region claims it makes the best version! Hiroshima style is special because it has noodles inside. At the okonimoyaki complex there are a couple dozen okonimoyaki stalls to choose from. The one we selected was just based on who had room to seat us. Most of the places served a similar style of okonimoyaki, with only subtle differences. The guy that made ours inherited the business from his father and is passing it on to his son who now works there also.
Our master chef starting the batter. He was impressed with how we ate it like Japanese people.
The finished product...delicious okonimoyaki
Hiroshima Castle
A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. The Hypocenter of the bombing
The next day we woke up early and went to the Hiroshima Peace Museum and the Atomic Bomb Victim Remembrance Hall. This museum is dedicated to educating the world about the atrocities of nuclear war. There were numerous exhibits explaining Hiroshima's history, the Japanese aggression in the Pacific, the physics of nuclear weapons, etc. Overall, the exhibits seemed pretty objective and many of them were quite sad. The Remembrance Hall had a multimedia testimonial room where you could literally spend days hearing survivors recount the horrors they had seen. It felt a bit weird being an American at this museum, but time heals all wounds and no one gave us a second glance.
Paper Cranes at the base of the statue of a teacher carrying a dying student at the Peace Museum
A-Bomb Dome
From the museum, we decided to go to Miyajima island, the site of the UNESCO-listed Itsukushima Shrine, one of Japan's many Shinto shrines. Traffic getting to the ferry was horrible, and the island itself was completely packed with tourists. A beautiful sunny weekend day along with the start of a fall leaf-viewing festival on the island and brought people out in droves. Itsukushima Shrine is well known as one of the three great sites of Japan, and an iconic representation of the island nation. When the tide is out, you can walk all the way to the shrine's torii (wooden gate that serves as an entrance to a sacred space in Shintoism). When the tide is in, it completely engulfs the torii and the nearby shrine is surrounded by water. We came as the tide was moving back in, and it was still between the torii and the shrine.
On Miyajima Island with the torii in the distance
Itsukushima Shrine Torii
Itsukushima Shrine Torii
Itsukushima Shrine
Pagoda on Miyajima Island
On the island, there are herds of roaming deer that, while not domesticated, have no fear of humans and are like large house cats. They follow people around begging for food and are pretty capable of sneaking up behind you and stealing your ice cream, as Paul nearly learned the hard way! The island is also known for a snack called momiji manju. These treats are little cakes filled with different creams, beans, or pastes. David got a cream cheese filled one that tasted just like cheesecake, a pleasant surprise in the land that dairy forgot.
Friendly!
Trying to steal Paul's Calpis-flavored ice cream! ...still cute.
It was windy and cold on the ferry back to the car! Poor Emiko!
From Miyajima Island, we began the long drive to Kyoto, where we'll spend two days before visiting Osaka and finally Tokyo. We arrived at Kyoto after dark and found dinner at an Italian restaurant (don't judge, how many days can you honestly go without looking for something with tomato sauce and cheese!?). Overall, the food wasn't great, but Paul got an interesting surprise...
On our last full day in Busan, we started off the day at the Busan Aquarium, where we saw an "underwater magic show" and plenty of sharks, otters, and various other aquatic creatures.
The aquarium is in Haeundae a neighborhood of Busan with one of the most popular beaches in South Korea and a bunch of shiny new skyscrapers.
Haeundae Beach
For lunch we stumbled upon a bulgogi place, where we got a lunch special that came with a ton of side dishes. Just when we were stuffed full, they brought out noodles, rice, and soup, which were all included in the price.
Cook your own bulgogi
The rest of the day was devoted mostly to shopping! Emiko had to pick up a few things she can't get in Japan (or are too expensive in Japan), and we bought some souvenirs and various other Korean things since it was our last day in the country. We walked around Shinsegae Centum City Mall, the largest single department store on earth (it even has an indoor ice skating rink!) and went to two different Lotte Department stores, back to the Gukje Market, and the Jagalchi Fish Market.
BIG Department Stores
Various sea critters for sale in the Jagalchi Market...pretty gross
After an exhausting day, we had our last meal in Korea: tteokboki, twigim, kimbap, and noodles!
Emiko with some kimbap!
Thursday morning we packed up and headed for the port. Our hotel manager gave us a ride to the terminal, and we were on our way after exchanging all of our won for yen.
Exactly.
Three hours later we pulled into Fukuoka Port, and stepped foot in Japan!
After dropping off our stuff at Emiko's car, we caught a bus to Tocho-ji Temple. It's right in Fukuoka's business district, and the contrast between the serene temple and the surrounding highrises is really neat. Inside the temple is Japan's largest wooden Buddha, underneath which is a bizarre walk-through showing the various types of hell and a pitch-black series of turns in a hallway. It's supposed to be about finding your own path through the darkness, or something like that! Japanese Buddhist temples are very different than Korean ones. This temple had lots of crisp lines, paper doors, tatami mats, and muted colors. The Korean temples always were very bright, colorful and full of objects and icons taking up space.
Tocho-ji Temple Pagoda
One of the possible hells you can get sent to
By this point we were starving, so we got some ramen for lunch. Fukuoka-style ramen has a pork based broth and is really delicious. At the place we went to, you first order your ramen from a machine, and bring the ticket to the wait staff. Each person has their own individual cubicle for eating ramen. You mark down on a sheet of paper exactly how you want it (firm noodles, lots of onion, extra spicy sauce, etc), and before you know it your personalized ramen shows up in a little box!
Personal Pan Pizza...err Ramen.
Next we were in for a special treat: a sumo wrestling match! We really lucked out on timing. There are only six grand sumo tournaments per year, each lasting just 15 days. One of the six is held in Fukuoka each November. We caught the last two hours of the tournament, where the highest ranked wrestlers compete. It was a really unique experience. The wrestlers do a lot of structured show-boating, where they do the big one-legged stomps, slap their thighs and bellies, and throw salt around the ring. They are allowed to do this for up to four minutes. Each actual match usually only took about 10 seconds or so.
Throwing salt before the match
After the show, we drove for about an hour and a half (paying about $30 in road tolls) to Emiko's town, Beppu, on the eastern side of Kyushu island. We stopped by a small 8 seat restaurant to get some gyoza for dinner. It was like eating delicious hand made dumplings in someone's kitchen. Emiko's grandmother used to get these dumplings as a child. Afterwards, we headed to Emiko's house to rest up for some touring of Beppu tomorrow before heading up towards Hiroshima on Saturday.
Gyoza for dinner! This one plate (three people's dinner) cost $18!
We arrived in Busan on Monday afternoon with enough time to check-in to our motel and do some hiking. We're staying at the Elysee Motel, another love motel. It has a fantastic location, right near a subway stop and just steps from Busan Tower, the Jigalchi fish market, and numerous bars, restaurants, and shops. Our room is clean, big, cheap, and has a ceiling painted with planets and stars that glows with black lights.
Funky!
Busan itself is an interesting city. It's the 2nd largest city in Korea, and definitely feels big...but lacks the glitz and glamor of Seoul. People here aren't as well dressed and the city isn't as clean as Seoul. The subway system is still great and very comprehensive. Despite that, Busan has a very beautiful natural setting. It's located in a series of valleys pressed against the sea. There are huge skyscrapers all over the city that jut up hillsides towards the mountains. In a way, it reminds us of a more dense version of Atlanta...you can be in a forest and then in the city almost instantly. As Lonely Planet puts it, the food in Busan is salty, spicy and raw, just like the people...and so far, we agree!
Busan set against the mountains
After checking in to the hotel we took a bus to Taejongdae Park, which is situated at the end of an island on the south side of
Busan. It had fantastic views of the sea in a natural forested
environment. On the way up, David got a "hot dog-u" from a vendor.
Paul enjoying the sea and sun at Taejongdae Park
Modern Art at Taejongdae. David thinks it's a weapon pointed at Japan.
Commerce is alive and well in Busan
On the way back to our motel we swung by the International Market and did some shopping and sightseeing in Nampodong. This area of Busan has tons of shops, street vendors, restaurants and bars. It's the most lively place we've seen since Seoul. We ate street food for dinner. We had a pajeon (onion and meat pancake) with a fried egg, a skewer of grilled chicken and some dumplings, all for around $8 total. Afterwards, we went to the top of Busan Tower for a panoramic view of the city at night.
Mmmm....Korean street food
Gukje Market
The view from Busan Tower at night
On Tuesday we took the subway to the North side of Busan, and walked to Geumgang Park, where we took a cable car up to the top of the mountain heading for a temple called Seokbulsa. Getting on the cable car we ran into a documentary crew filming about fall foods in Korean mountain areas. They interviewed us briefly on the way up about the view and we parted ways...for now. We continued on our way to Seokbulsa Temple.
This guy was super animated and spoke with the cadence of a Japanese game show host
Seokbulsa isn't easy to find. After reaching the top cable car station we walked for about an hour past an old fortress wall gate and through a small town. The terrain was pretty hilly and we had to ask for directions on more than one occasion. The trek was worth the effort when we finally reached the temple. Seokbulsa is made up of a series of reliefs carved directly into the mountainside. The reliefs are around a thousand years old (so we were told), and the entire temple site was very beautiful.
Seokbulsa Temple
Reliefs
Big reliefs
Seokbulsa
As we were getting ready to leave Seokbulsa, we ran into the documentary crew again. They took some shots of us looking at the temple, then invited us to lunch! We didn't really have any plans for the rest of the afternoon, so we went with them on a search for local foods. It actually saved us a lot of walking, since they had a van and we were so far up the mountain (and not really sure how to get back to the subway from the temple without backtracking up the mountain). We went to a small village area within the old fortress that we had seen one of the gates of earlier in our hike. After wandering around for a while with the film crew asking the locals where to find a specific type of food, we settled in for some ori bulgogi, which is spiced pieces of roasted duck. It's not a very common food in Korea, but apparently it's either popular in the specific area we were in, or in the autumn... we're not really sure because we didn't understand much of what was going on! It was kind of a bizarre and unique experience!
The food itself was some of the best we've had in Korea. There were about a dozen side dishes and the duck was incredibly succulent and well prepared. There was also a goat marrow soup and some hot peppers that the documentary crew wanted us to eat raw. David lost a game of paper rock scissors to the show host and had to eat them on film first. He handled it like a pro, much to the Korean's surprise. After filming, the crew also commented on their surprise at how well we used chopsticks. Two points to the Americans for out-pepper-eating the Koreans and being able to use chopsticks. Maybe we'll help shatter some stereotypes about Westerners.
Us with the film crew
Lots of food at lunch, and with a view!
After lunch they dropped us back off at the subway so we could ride back into town. We'll be on the lookout to try to find ourselves on KNN so we can see how they edited it all into a documentary about autumn foods in Korea. Edit: Here are the two videos! Video 2 is best.
Back at the hotel we met up with Paul's friend Emiko and went for dinner. We had some Korean fried chicken, which is a really popular dish. We've had it in Atlanta before, where they fry it in olive oil then coat it in a spicy sauce. The place we found in Busan was actually a bit healthier because they oven bake the chicken instead of frying it. It was still pretty good.
Korean Oven Baked Chicken
Finally we went to the huge Lotte department store near our hotel, which has the world's largest indoor fountain show, called "Aquatique." It was pretty impressive, with synchronized colored fountains shooting from both the floor and the ceiling. They even spelled out words!
Spirals of water falling from the ceiling
Tomorrow is our last full day in South Korea, then it's off to Japan!
