blood in busan
My final stop on my crazy month of travel was to my hometown of Busan. For many reasons it was the place where I was most looking forward to visiting.
First and foremost, I have the most family in Busan, and I was looking forward to seeing all of them. We had dinner together, and its the first time I can remember three generations of my family all eating dinner together. I was looking forward to seeing my nephew too, I’m pretty close with him since he went to school in San Francisco and lived with my parents for about half a year. He was shorter than me when he left, but now he’s way taller than me.
My nephew only had one day to hang out with me, since he was going to a boarding school for a month. We hung out like old times, wandering around and eating food. He introduced me to sunji soup, which is a soup made of coagulated cow’s blood. I’m not usually a fan of food made with blood, but this was actually really tasty. And it was ridiculously cheap too! My nephew and I split a bowl for the equivalent of about $3.
After my nephew went off to boarding school I spent most of the rest of my time in Busan with his family. Even though I rarely see them, I felt like we were close. I guess being blood relatives makes it that way. Family is family, even after long periods of not seeing them or even meeting them for the first time, as in the case of my nieces in Busan.
Many of the tourist sites in Busan are near the ocean, including this Buddhist temple built on the ocean side cliffs.
There are several beaches, including Haeundae beach. In the summer time it would be crowded here. Since it’s the middle of winter I wasn’t expecting too many people, but there were a surprisingly large number of people wandering around the beach still.
The maritime academy that my dad graduated from is in Busan.
At one of the restaurants we went to there was a cage in the parking lot that held these two dogs. I felt a pang of sadness on account of them, partly because they were caged, but mostly because they remind me of Dannie and Annie, the two dogs I had growing up.
My time in Busan and Korea as a whole was sort of a journey of discovery for me. Part of me wonders what life would be like if my family never left Korea. It got me thinking about what part of us is caused by blood or genetics, and what part of us is because of environment? I wonder if I had lived in Korea, would I be the same guy that loves the outdoors and loves biking? Would I be the same guy in a different city, biking along the beach in Busan instead of biking along the river in Sacramento? Or would I be someone else completely different?
