Busan, 2022 (Day 8)

First off, I know you’re wondering: what happened to Days 6 & 7? Well, Day 6 was spent relaxing at the hotel, giving my feet some rest and ended with a scrumptious meal…which gave me severe food poisoning. So, I spent all of Day 7 recovering. Thankfully I felt mostly recovered on Day 8, so we set off on a moderate level adventure in Gamcheon Culture Village.

Started off the day’s adventure with a bland porridge dish. Others had shrimp, beef, pumpkin, but I was content with my plain that was flavored with the winsome combo of soy sauce and sesame oil.

We rode a village bus to the village, a twisty and fast jaunt to the top of the hill (read: terrifying.) We unloaded with a bunch of other tourists; there were actually a LOT of tourists at the entrance, but they did thin out as we walked further into the village.

“The” shot of the village. Many of the buildings had lower than standard ceilings, with extra small doorways at the top/bottom of precarious stairs.
Some colorful stairs.
A building with lovelocks (?)
An upward path.

We followed the preset path of the village stamp map, which gave our journey through the village some structure and was fun for the kids. Biggest disappointments were that the Salt Company on the map was a sculpture installation of a historical site, not an actual store that sold salt.

We stopped into a cafe and fed some ducks (random!) before pausing for a lunch break; I had a mild lunch of rice cake soup, with more rice, that was very tasty.

“Village roads, village steps, village plaza, and the tower of the pleasing loneliness” by Seung H-Sang and Lee Hahnshik.

Throughout the village there were art installations that were added during the revitalization in 2009. Many of them were interactive, like the Tower of Pleasing Loneliness, pictured above: a narrow tower, the top floor covered with an open slatted roof. Other works below include the House of Hope II, which had faded from sun exposure, adding an interesting element of age to the already thoughtful peace. There were also sculptures built along the village walls, which integrated the colorful buildings of the village into the rough terrain behind it.

“The House of Hope II – At Home” by Roh Ju-ryun.
A poem, installed as a wall sculpture.

It took us a leisurely three hours to complete the stamp map route, after which we easily hopped onto another village bus and returned to the city center. I spent the rest of the evening catching up on some reading (The Overstory by Richard Powers: wow!) to prepare for our final adventure in Busan tomorrow!

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