Busan pt. 2 - Market & BTS Edition

As promised, I'm back with part two about Busan! From October 14th to October 16th I was able to experience Busan a second time, this time together with my German friends Celine and Louis! Admittedly, this weekend was a little short, but I'm happy to give you another, slightly different look at Busan than in Part 1. Be sure to check out Part 1 before you continue reading here: Busan - The South of Korea pt. 1

One of the main reasons why we went to Busan this weekend was the last BTS concert that was taking place in Busan. It wasn't nearly as important to me as it was to my friend Celine, who won tickets for the concert through Weverse, the official fan platform for BTS. Unfortunately, Louis and I were less fortunate - both in winning tickets and getting hold of tickets through Interpark. Anyone who has tried it knows what I'm talking about. It was my first attempt to get BTS tickets. A difficult task, as I heard beforehand. Not only was it difficult, it was downright impossible to get tickets. Since the concert was less of an official BTS concert and more a promo for the World Expo in Busan, the concert was sponsored, which meant that fans got free tickets. Accordingly, as good as the whole world tried to get hold of tickets through Interpark. I can't describe how much my dislike for Interpark has grown over the last few weeks, because buying tickets is almost impossible for international fans. I already noticed this with Enhypen whose tickets were sold out within 5 minutes - despite my benefits as an official membership holder. As already thought, the Interpark website crashed again when what felt like a million people tried to get hold of BTS tickets. What's unfair about the whole thing is that the Korean interpark system, unlike the international interpark (yes, Koreans separate this here), held up and therefore almost only Koreans got a chance to snag tickets. In order to be able to use the Korean Interpark, you unfortunately need a Korean credit card and therefore also an alien registration card. No matter how many friends I asked to help me get BTS tickets, for all of us the page would take forever to load or crash. No chance.

Still, I'm happy that at least one of our group, Celine, got tickets through sheer luck, although I'm admittedly a bit jealous as this was BTS' last concert for now. As well as announcing their hiatus mid-year, the group has now also announced their entry into military service, so no more group activity is expected until 2025, officially announced by BTS' label. But instead, Louis and I decided to make the best of it, experience a bit of Busan and just stream the official live stream of the concert in the evening. In Korea once again better than for everyone else in the world. While the live stream worked perfectly and smoothly for us, other countries did not have access or a stable connection to enjoy the concert.

Of course I can do bad storytelling here because I weren't there live at the BTS concert. If you ask Celine, she will tell you: "Best day of my life!!" I was allowed to watch and listen to many passionate impressions and videos from her afterwards; the concert was indeed very magical. For my part, I can only tell you about the live stream that Louis and I turned on on the bed of our hotel room, along with cake that we had picked up earlier in town. Well prepared with an HDMI cable and the hotel TV, we were able to stream the two-hour concert. Not the first experience for me, but for Louis, who probably thought "What am I doing here?" I have to mention that Louis used to be strictly against the K-Pop scene and I've slowly experienced his tolerance towards K-Pop, especially towards BTS, over the last few years. It all started at the end of 2021 with a small Christmas present or a motivation for me to spur me on for my bachelor thesis. The little bundle consisted of BTS merch and a card in which Louis even tried his hand at Korean! And finally to this day, sitting by my side and doing a whole BTS live stream with me screaming and fangirl acting. My gratitude is incredibly great here, because you really can't expect something like that from every guy. Not only that, but the willingness to even visit me in Korea. The first person from my close environment or circle of friends that I meet again after almost two months here in Korea. And then from someone I wouldn't have expected that from a few years ago. But there are quite a few friends who would now like to travel to Korea after my blog gave them so much insight.

Back to topic: that's how we sat on the bed, me with a bad headache, still drawing the last bit of strength to keep up, fangirl and sing along, because I didn't want to miss the last concert. Excitedly, I initiated Louis into some of the song lyrics, observed his reactions and finally we sang together to the only song he knows and really likes: "Idol". I think it was an overcoming for him, because in the end the mobile phone was often more interesting than the stream. But admittedly, a live concert in person would have been a lot more exciting than a live stream on the hotel TV. But it was the gesture on his part that counted. Nevertheless, the concert was a great success! Anyone who knows BTS and has already seen several live concerts knows that the guys never disappoint. Because they always sing live, improvise, show off amazing dance performances. A mix of older and newer songs lets the fans become nostalgic on the one hand, and on the other hand forget the future and enjoy the here and now. Of course, fireworks and 30-minutes of chatting shouldn't be missing either - man, they can talk for a long time. And there is always an encore. Overall 10 out of 10 as always. I'm excited to see what the future holds and how BTS will perform in three years. As the guys themselves said: the best is yet to come!

Picture Credit to Celine: www.instagram.com/xxocelineoxx/

Enough of BTS - let's skip to the more interesting part: what else did we see in Busan? Considering the time (we only had the whole Saturday and Sunday until about 4pm in total) we couldn't do that much. In addition, this time our hotel was at the end of the world, because the BTS concert had made almost everything in Busan more expensive and sold out, so there weren't many options left. So it took us about 1.5 hours to get into town and we left quite late, because as girls are, Celine and I needed a little longer to get ready. Longer than usual, because I made up Celine for the concert so that she looks bomb! When we got downtown around 2 p.m., Louis and I walked the streets of Busan, letting ourselves be carried away where the crowd took us, with no navigation at all. For a Saturday it was of course very crowded and so we didn't have to look long for the Gukje Market, because somehow all roads led there. Since we didn't have enough time in Seoul to fully enjoy Gwajang Market, we wanted to take our time at Gukje Market this time. Because Busan is known for its fish markets - after all, we are right on the sea! We squeezed through the narrow streets, past the crowd and the ajumas (elderly ladies) who set up their food stalls in the middle of the streets, and past all the clothes shops. Next to it the Busan Tower towered in the air, which I had already visited the last time I were in Busan, until we finally got to the Gukje Market after we got an impression of Busan's streets and alleys.

Gukje Market is huge and covered. First we walked through the long clothes and fabric shops until we finally got to what we were originally looking for: food. The food market is across the street and is just as long and huge as the fabric market. If you are in South Korea, a visit to the markets should definitely not be missed! Because here you can get typical local street food that you won't find anywhere else. Aside from the standard Korean dishes such as barbecue or bibimbap, etc., you will find tteokbokki (spicy rice cake), odeng (fish cake), grilled, pickled pork skewers, pork feet, blood sausage, kalguksu (noodle soup), mandu (dumplings), bindaetteok (a kind of vegetable pancake, sometimes with meat) or gimbap (rice and vegetables wrapped in seaweed, similar to sushi). Or typical for Busan: lots of fish and seafood, plus fried fish, octopus and glass noodles. Here you would like to stop at every corner and savor everything - but please no blood sausages for me! Louis and I tried bindaetteok with meat, mandu, kalguksu, and fried fish, and at a smaller, restaurant-style stand, ttteokbokki, fishcake, and glass noodle bibimbap. Eating the slippery, thin, and elongated tteokbokki with chopsticks was a bit of a challenge for Louis, let alone cutting them down the middle with chopsticks alone. This actually takes some, if not years of practice. Luckily I was able to practice a little at the Chinese restaurant I worked at for a year in Frankfurt where eating out of bowls and chopsticks was standard, as well as I've always loved eating ramen with chopsticks at home for practice.

Small side fact: In Korea you eat a lot with chopsticks, but rice and soups are eaten with a spoon. Something that actually doesn't come naturally to me. I prefer a mix of Chinese and Japanese ways of eating: piling food in a small bowl, eating noodles with chopsticks, including salad and all that, and slurping soup straight out of the bowl. Well, are you hungry yet? Hopefully the pictures give you a satisfying insight into Korean markets and local street food.

After we had eaten some street food, we decided to take a walk through Yeongdusan Park, which also houses the Busan Tower and which I already reported on in part one. The park is really beautiful and offers a view over Busan's houses, walkways through nature surrounded by trees and small wooden statues depicting deer, lots of flowers, temple-like facilities to sit in and wooden park benches such as a wooden Hollywood swing - and of course we met stray cats again. It was also at this park where I taught Louis the Korean word for cat: Ko-Yang-I. The way he pronounced it sounded more like sweet Chinese babble. After a bit of walking, we let the afternoon fade away under the rays of the sun, closed our eyes for a while and relaxed before heading back into the hustle and bustle of the city and then home.

Talking about BTS in Busan - As promised in my part one, I really want to mention the Magnate Cafe. Because this belongs to Jimin's father from BTS, who is originally from Busan. As a passionate BTS fan, you shouldn't miss the Magnate's visit, and you won't regret it! Unless you're going on a day when what feels like half a million BTS fans are gathered here for a concert, you don't even have to queue to go to the cafe. So I'm glad I went to this cafe on my first visit to Busan because the second time you didn't get a chance unless you wanted to queue outside for over an hour with other fans. But usually you get a seat inside and quite a large selection of pastries and homemade cakes and drinks that are expensive but really good! Here I tried the carrot cake and an ice-cream latte while blogging on my laptop with BTS music playing in the background. The atmosphere is really nice, probably even nicer if you catch a less crowded time. Then you can really enjoy the BTS music along with the artworks on the wall. Not only pictures of Marilyn Monroe or paintings of Jimin are exhibited here, but also his caps and jewelry. If the ceiling falls on your head inside, you can just sit down outside. There are several options between the whole woody tables, more modern leather armchairs and cozy couches. While the cafe screams urban inside, it looks rather unspectacular from the outside, secluded in an industrial-style complex. I really didn't expect the cafe here. But don't be fooled by the appearance from the outside, because inside it's very cozy.