On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...
We arrived Busan just a little past 3pm on 12/8/2018, which was a Saturday. We went straight to our hotel, finished check-in, dropped off our bags, then back to the subway station. Our goals that night were (1) visit Jagalchi, and (2) have seafood & Korean galbi for dinner because who doesn't like galbi?? Seafood because Busan is known for a thriving seafood industry and Jagalchi is particularly famous for fresh seafood. Getting to Jagalchi from our hotel was pretty easy by subway. Our main objectives for Jagalchi that night were to explore the surrounding area and visit BIFF Square.
Jagalchi Market, a seafood market, is a very popular tourist destination for dining, walking tour, and cultural tour etc. The market is known for "buy live seafood from various vendors on the first floor, then head upstairs where vendors will have someone to cook you have bought." Fees seem to vary. I've read some had complimentary cooking while some had to pay extra for food preparation & cooking. Bloggers shared some success stories in negotiating for a lower fee, though some failed to do so. At first we wanted to try buy live seafood and have dinner right there, whether we had to pay extra or not. We went to what looked like Jagalchi Market to us, but apparently it wasn't! There were many stalls and we saw many different types of live fish, shellfish, crabs, octopus, and "living things" I didn't know the names of...I just knew they were alive and considered "seafood."
Eventually we both became very hungry so we decided to just try an All You Can Eat Korean grill nearby. We took an elevator to get to the 6th floor and got greeted by a hostess quickly. The restaurant was packed with tourists (many were with tourist groups). It was loud, too. Big selection of "ingredients" and meat and seafood for diners to choose from and cook at their tables.
Korean grill is typically a grill-yourself type of dining experience. It's something W and I both enjoy doing. We actually didn't eat a whole lot while we were at this restaurant. W and I ate too fast and got full too quickly lol However, I personally don't recommend dining here as a tourist. There was a lot of food, though they tasted okay. As a tourist from the a small suburb in Colorado (at the time), I think the quality and value we got from this Korean grill restaurant was no doubt better than what we could get in northern Colorado. But, I also feel we could get much better quality of food during our limited time in Busan.
After dinner, we headed over to BIFF Square. BIFF stands for Busan International Film Festival. Before visiting, my imaginary impression for this area was "it's probably like a night market!" Well, I was wrong! While some aspects of my actual visit there were similar to that of a night market, the experience was more than just a night market!! Most night markets I've visited had various food stalls, cloth booths, juice/drink shops, gaming booths (some inside brick and mortar, some just with tables and chairs on the side of the street), some had "rows of street vendors" in a large designated area (think of a school parking lot), and some were concentrated on 1 or 2 narrow streets. In my memory, BIFF Square was a large area with Gwangjang-ro being the main road, with many shops and vendors stretched into the narrow alleys from the main road. Restaurants, food carts, pizza, steakhouse, fried chicken, bakery, juice/yogurt/ice cream shops, pharmacy, beauty shops, clothing stores, convenient stores, coffeeshops, random knick knacks, you name it, all was there.
It was crowded at BIFF Square. I was trying my best in taking a picture of the "entrance" with a good viewing of those darn four letters "BIFF." It took a moment but I got it (picture above) and those letters were quickly buried by visitors (see below).
BIFF Square is also famous for Hollywood-like handprints of international stars casted on the ground, though we didn't recognize any name that we saw there, so no photo haha. Street food, oh my goodness, "street food heaven" is not an exaggerating nickname for this place! We saw vendors selling all kinds of snacks from Korean pancake (with a huge line of customers) to jumbo Chinese meat buns (also a huge line of customers). We weren't hungry (we just had that AYCE buffet lol) but also felt the urge to get something while there, so we got "egg bread" (계란빵, Gyeran-ppang, it literally translates as "egg bread"). I don't remember how many came in one bag (maybe 6 or 7) but I remember these being warm, fluffy, comforting, and slightly sweetened. I liked these a lot :)!
There were many lighting decorations on the sides of the streets, as well as inside the stores. Christmas vibe was everywhere!
We mostly just walked alongside the streets. Didn't buy anything from the shops here, except this one general beauty store (like a pharma-beauty store, carries beauty products from various brands). I sampled a few different products (from brands heard of and unheard of) and realized I liked some stuff from "Mamonde." I really liked the consistency and just that feeling after my hands & face were applied with their toner and cream. These were lightly scented, and it was a pleasant smell. W saw me checking online prices and reviews for these and said "if you like it, just get it," and went to the end of this super long line of customers waiting for check-out! I opened these that night at the hotel, loved them, and bought more from Lotte Outlets before leaving Korea!
While strolling around BIFF Square, we saw a direction sign for "Yongdusan Park" and thought "why not go to a park?" We followed the sign and saw, not kidding, tunnels of escalators and stairs! Heck yeah! We went from "why not?" to "let's roll!"
The escalators moved kinda slow. Finally, we made it out of the tunnels. Wait, there were more stairs to go! At the time we didn't know Busan Tower was just right there. We saw the tower right there and then (red tower in the pictures below) but had no idea that was THE iconic tower of Busan!
We took a nice long walk at the park and sipped tea there. Then, we headed back to the subway station to get back to the hotel. Our first night in Busan ended with playing multiple rounds of Mario Kart (oh yeah, we brought Nintendo Switch with us to Korea!) 😎
💗CM
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