South Korea Day 5: Baseball, coastal walks and more spam

Becks and me at the start of the Igidae coastal walk

On our only full day in Busan we decided to check out the Igidae coastal walk which is on the eastern side of Busan.

Leaving our hotel we avoided the expensive French chain bakeries that had caught us out the day before at Seoul station and went for an independent looking bakery to pick up a few snacks. The bakeries in South Korea and Japan were always a bit of a lottery, you'd pick something up that for all the world looked savoury and then was filled with sweet red bean paste!

Fuelled up we caught the underground to Namcheon and then walked through a dull residential across to the start of the coastal walk.

Suspension bridges on the coastal walk

On the walk we got a few reminders that the typhoon that had hit the day before where some large waves must have pounded the coastline. We drifted for an hour along the coastal path and then turned round and retraced our steps. We didn't see any other western tourists on the walk, but there were a few locals out for a walk. Some looked like quite serious retired exercisers who I suspect do the walk regularly.

Housing blocks in Busan

On the walk back to the underground station I took the above picture of a coupe of residential tower blocks. One of the things I'll remember about Korea is the scores of identical residential tower blocks that we saw. The bigger numbers painted on the side of the blocks are the only way that you could distinguish one from another.

Before jumping onto the metro we stopped in an attractive looking Gimpab shop for a snack. They didn't have an English menu so we pointed at a couple of safe looking choices, but like last night we were served spam!

More spam gimbap

 In my research of Korean before we left home, a visit to the baseball came up as a must do (along with buying new glasses). The internet was full of warning stories about sell out games and the tantalising prospect of being able to take your own pizzas into the stadium to eat while you enjoyed the game.

We made a beeline for the ticket office as soon as we arrived at the stadium but needn't have worried because the ground wasn't even a tenth full. My Korean wasn't up to much and we accidentally ended up with tickets for the away fans section, the LG Twins.

Outside of the Lotte Giants stadium

Tickets secured we headed to the club shop so that I could buy myself a baseball gap and then we went in search of the promised pizza. We couldn't find the shop I'd read about on the internet so instead ended up buying a couple of pizzas from a restaurant in a local shopping centre. I also bought a can of beer from the 7 Eleven. They changed the rules this season to stop allowing you to bring your own cans into the stadium so they helpfully pour your beer into plastic cups for you instead.

Baseball action

In all honesty the games was pretty dreary. The most excitement was coming from the Lotte Giants fan zone. We were going to move seats to enjoy the atmosphere, but then the LG Twins scored a run and the fan zone went eerily quiet. Why not cheer on your team to help them come back from behind?

I have to admit we left before the end of the game. Chased out by one of the people in a nearby seat who was eating some rather whiffy dried squid.