This post is part of an ongoing travelogue. To start at the very beginning, click here.
Day 4 in Korea! It’s a bright and early day for us, we have a packed itinerary today. The weather’s here been windy and cold these few days, but sunny when the sun comes at in the afternoon. The view from our hotel room in the morning. In the distance you can see Gamcheon Cultural Village, where we are going later today. But for now in the morning, we are going to Jagalchi Fish Market and Changseongdong Eat Alley.
Jagalchi is the biggest fish market in all of Korea, befitting of the harbour that is Busan. Just like Tsukiji in Tokyo and Noryanjin in Seoul, Jagalchi serves the greater metropolitan with all kinds of seafood every morning. The market is only two stops away from our hotel, so instead of taking the subway, we took a short bus ride and walked a short distance to the market.
Along the way, there are many interesting shops to look at. Isn’t this SO cute?
“Don’t you want to take me home…?”
Jagalchi is quite unique in that it is both an indoor and outdoor fish market. In fact, the outdoor portion is far bigger than in the indoor portion. Two blocks away from the main building, you can sell the fish sellers.
Soon you can see all the sellers everywhere, with all kinds of weird sea creatures.
We’re here for brunch, so we were looking for a place to eat. They have many restaurants where you can pick the seafood outside and have them cook for you to eat inside. One of the shops caught our eye, with their “as seen on Running Man” sign.
Well, that’s usually a good enough sign for us to eat here. Besides, the lady boss, who spoke Mandarin, was quite aggressive in coaxing us to go in.
We selected one of their sets, but apparently, it came with a lot of side orders. A LOT. Well, i can only say that it is good value for our money.
This was very tasty. It’s like an omelette but made with corn.
Sashimi!
The food just kept coming and coming. The fried fish was also very good.
Finally, the food stopped and we were so full. I wonder when Kim Jong-Kook and Song Ji-Hyo came here, did they eat as much as us.
After our heavy brunch, we kept walking out in the market. We snuck inside the indoor market to take a look. It’s more of the same thing, just wet, not really clean, and smells fishy.
Stalls inside the market also have seating area for eating, but not really conducive to sit and eat a meal here.
So we can check off Jagalchi off my list of fish markets. In all honesty, after seeing other markets like Noryanjin in Seoul, Curb Market in Sapporo, Nishiki in Kyoto (have not had the chance to visit the historic Tsukiji), Jagalchi isn’t very much different. Maybe a little less interesting than Noryanjin, to be honest. But then again, with these markets in Japan and Korea, they sell basically the same stuff. But we really enjoyed the food here, lots of variety at a good price.