South Korea's seafood city — Jagalchi Market at dawn, eomuk fishcakes on toothpicks, raw hoe with doenjang, and mountains meeting the sea
Busan is South Korea's second-largest city (3.4 million people), its largest port, and the most distinct major city in a country that otherwise tends toward Seoul-centered cultural homogeneity — a coastal city of mountains, beaches (Haeundae, Gwangalli, Songjeong), and a food culture built on the sea rather than the land. The food hierarchy begins at Jagalchi Fish Market (the largest seafood market in Korea, run almost entirely by women, open by 5am) for hoe (raw, freshly sliced fish with doenjang paste), continues to BIFF Square in Jungang-dong for eomuk (fish cake skewers in hot broth — the…
Busan has been inhabited since 5,000 BCE and was a major port for trade with Japan from the 15th century — the Japanese trading post at Waegwan (established 1407, eventually home to 2,000 Japanese residents) operated for nearly 500 years before being incorporated into the modern port. During the Korean War (1950–1953), Busan was the only major South Korean city that was never occupied — the Busan Perimeter (a defensive line held August–September 1950 by UN and South Korean forces) was the critical moment before General MacArthur's Incheon Landing reversed the war. The city's wartime populatio…