#KelilingKorea Busan: Heaven for Foodie

"Where do you normally go in your free time?"
"Busan"

Then people would look at me awkwardly, as Busan is 400km away from Seoul.

But it's true. I love Busan that I keep coming back. I lost count already but I think I've gone there for 6 times within a year. Why? Food. Call me crazy but I am willing to travel 10 hours roundtrip for Busan' Jjimdak, Hotteok and Bingsu.

Jaws Jjimdak

Red sauce Jaws!

I only discovered this place when I got lost with my #KelilingKorea mates in Kyungsung University area. It was my third time in Busan and we wanted to find a special restaurant that sell something with cheese (couldn't recall what was the thing we searched for). We could not find it despite using Naver Map yet we were damn hungry. So Abby randomly pointed at one door, "Guys this looks nice!"

source: Naver

Of course I would never reject chicken...
So we went in and we were amazed with the fried octopus option. We ordered the black sauce jjimdak with cheese and octopus. Talk about fat...

if this is not sexy, I don't know what is

OMG. We all fell in love. Every bite tasted soooooo good that we even wondered: how can we get this in Seoul???

from Nampo branch

I always go to Jaws Jjimdak everytime I go to Busan. I have tried the gochujang (red) sauce one, and it was phenomenal! Plating may vary, but the taste is always equally amazing. Price? Definitely way much cheaper than Seoul' jjimdak.

Ajusshi Hotteok
I visited Busan for the very first time when I still did not know much about Korea. It was only my second month in Korea. I was traveling with a group of friends and they sorted out everything. One of the destination was the famous hotteok at BIFF Square.

I did not even know what is hotteok and it has nothing to do with hot dog, fyi.

So people were queueing for this KRW1000 snack (but now it's KRW1200). I was doubting whether I would like it or not as I am never really a fan of seeds/peanut.

I could make a special post dedicated for Hotteok but basically it looked like this. Fried.

The taste was simply... Fantastic. They are really generous with the fillings. The sweetness is just perfect and the seeds are also balanced. I would die to have this stall open in front of my school... KRW1200? I can buy two every day!

(I am so sleepy rn, to be continued)

Ihwa Mural Village: Overrated Spot in Seoul

Kunjungan gue ke Ihwa Mural Village disaat winter lalu merupakan salah satu pengalaman terburuk jalan-jalan bersama club. Bukan cuma urusan suhu yang minus 10, tetapi juga fakta bahwa Ihwa-dong ini belum siap menerima banyak turis.

Ihwa Mural Village adalah projek pemerintah Seoul untuk mentransformasi salah satu pemukiman miskin (mau bilang kumuh tapi gak kumuh...) menjadi apik dan fotogenik. Berusaha meniru kesuksesan Gamcheon Cultural Village di Busan, tampaknya Ihwa Mural Village ini gagal. Akses kesana cukup ribet untuk first timer dan spot foto tidak sebanyak yang dibayangkan. Tapi bagi pengguna Naver Map tentu tidak ada gang yang mustahil ditemukan di Korea.

Spot paling utama adalah angel wings. Ignore my pose, I was freezing.

Seperti layaknya spot-spot lain di Seoul, Ihwa Mural Village juga penuh jalan mendaki.

Ada beberapa spot unik untuk foto, tapi overall, we were done in 30 minutes. Campuran bosen dan beku kedinginan.

Belakangan, ada berita di KoreaTimes bahwa warganya ternyata komplain akibat banyak kunjungan turis. Atau keluhan lain soal sampah di KoreaHerald sini... Agak heran dan speechless, karena Gamcheon Cultural Village juga dipenuhi turis tapi semua tetap damai tuh?

Anyway, gak recommended kecuali memang mau foto-foto ala blogger negara tetangga yang bawa fotografer pribadi kemana-mana sambil sok senyum atau pose ala model katalog.