Winter is not a season you associate with a port and beach town like Busan, but it was still relatively active for the Lunar New Year.

These eels weren’t too happy about the situation.

One of the bonuses about South Korea is that you’re never far from some sort of hot food.  Here’s, it’s twigim, the generic term for deep-fried snacks (similar to what the Japanese would call tempura).  It’s just about the least healthy type of Korean food in a cuisine that’s relatively low in fat.

There’s plenty of fresh (often still living) seafood, everywhere.  This is Busan, of course.

Yeah, I’m the kind of guy who could watch stuff like this all day.

Busan Museum of Art.

Korea usually does a pretty good job with museums.  Seoul has a ton of them, and the mixture of public space and potential educational value makes them a popular government investment outside the capital as well.  Also, many of them are free.  What’s not to like?

The permanent collection leans towards 20th century painters, with a few galleries focused solely on landscapes of Busan.  There was a cool exhibition of contemporary Korean artists as well, very heavy on the video art.  (The legacy of Nam June Paik?)

Also, the Okin art collective is pretty rad.

Finally, a warning about Busan cabbies: If you’re a foreigner they will try and rip you off.  I was staying at Haeundae Beach, and the ride to the BMA is pretty short.  So my older cabbie took it upon himself to try and do a few loops around it with the meter turned off.  Don’t hesitate to call these guys on their bullshit (“Mee-ta ga ob-so-yo?  Way-o?”) or pull the “foreigner is getting angry” card.

Haeundae Beach, Busan.

Even in the middle of winter, without being able to go swimming in the ocean and enjoying the sight of throngs of tourists from within and without Korea flocking to the raw fish restaurants, the odeng stalls (Busan has the best odeng, and they sell most of it to Japan! Shock!), and, ahem, the many incredibly drunk people of all nationalities, there’s a vibe here that’s more welcoming than in the rest of the country.

Of course, Busan is a port city, and ports have always been where worlds collide.

An older Korean friend of mine claimed that Busanites are the smartest Koreans.  I quickly responded that I’d been told Seoulites were.  He went on to say that even before liberation from Japan in 1945, international shipping and radio waves from Japan had made Busanites the most open to foreigners, and the most internationally minded.  (Mind you, resentment against Japan remains high to this day, but attitudes towards the more modern and open world view that Japan represented is a bit different, albeit complicated.)

Going back centuries, Busan was the first Korean city that allowed for foreigners to trade with the natives.  And while they were hardly embraced, it was a far cry from the attitudes towards foreigners throughout the rest of the peninsula (overland trade with China to the north being a notable exception).

Pretentious navel gazing on my part?  Probably.  But if I didn’t enjoy my current job in Daegu so much I’d definitely be looking to find work here, in South Korea’s most international of cities.

Also, parts of it are gorgeous.

I’m packing for a trip tomorrow to Busan.  No real plan beyond wanting to see a current exhibit at the Busan Museum of Art and maybe checking out one of the city’s two casinos (no regular Hold’em game, wtf?).

It’s the year of the dragon, so if you’re turning 12, 24, 36, 48, etc. this year, dream big.

“You would not know that North and South Korea were technically still at war by the beaming faces all around, the loud applause for the North Korean performers and the frenzy of picture-taking afterward. Northerners and Southerners pose shoulder to shoulder, a moment of cross-border kinship captured with the latest South Korean gadgetry.”

I actually tried to find the North Korean restaurant in Vientiane (Laos), but Lonely Planet let me down.  Also, it was blazing hot and I wasn’t in the mood to trudge around for food that I could find at home.

Still, it must be a pretty amazing experience for South Koreans to meet North Koreans by traveling away from the peninsula.  And it must be mind-blowing for the North Koreans who get selected to cook, serve, and perform in these little hermit kingdom satellites in the form of restaurants.

There aren’t many reasons to be optimistic about the future but here are a few.

And honestly, I don’t think I could last a week without wikipedia.

Also, my fellow Democrats are so fucking stupid sometimes it burns.

I’m guilty of watching way too many cooking shows and honestly, as much as I love Tony Bourdain, I can’t get too worked up about an overweight woman with diabetes doing a cooking show based on buttery, fatty, lard-y food.  Just like real porn is all about promoting an unachievable fantasy, food porn is all about presenting things you can try to make but more often than not you’ll miss the mark.

That said, this woman is now going to use her diabetes to team up with a pharmaceutical company to make even more cash.  That’s pretty sick and twisted.

Also, Megan Amram is awesome.

The Joy Formidable, “Chwyrlio”

I really have a huge band crush on these guys.  They can rock hard, or they can pull off something like this.

If I understand correctly, this is a slowed down version of one of their songs sung in Welsh instead of English.

Anyhow, I’m teaching two hours a day Monday through Thursday.  Off to Busan this weekend for some relaxation for the Lunar New Year, then a couple more classes next week, then (thank Allah) February off and a flight to Guam.

It’s supposed to snow in the next few days, so I will think warm, tropical thoughts of my impending trip.

Also, I’m going to root for the Baltimore Ravens but if I was to bet money I’d put the kids’ tuition on the Patriots.

Actually, I could manage to root for the 49′ers as well.  Amazing turnaround in just one season.

The Giants can suck it.  I’m a Redskins fan, so that goes without saying.