Busan, part VI - Gamcheon Cultural Village

Gamcheon Cultural Village was where things started to get a little hairy. It doesn't really bear thinking about, but then again this is what happens when you're a reasonably attractive woman in your twenties travelling alone, I guess.

So after I'd spent a lot of time walking around Nampo boardwalk, I went to Lotte department store to get some stuff for the fam, then I went back to the hostel to get my second (or third) wind and then went back to the metro once again. Gamcheon was supposed to be relatively close to my hostel, a two-metro stop, and I would have to take another bus up to the village itself.

I sat down on a bench in Nampo to wait for the metro, and this is another thing that I found rather weird about the metro in Busan, that the trains all seem spaced out. You have to wait about ten minutes if you missed the last train. Maybe I've been spoilt by underground systems in other cities but having to wait for more than 10 minutes for the metro seems a tad excessive to me. Anyway, a middle aged guy came and sat down next to me, and then he started talking to me. I took out my headphones and looked at him, and he spoke in Korean, and I said, I'm sorry I don't speak Korean. He tried again, this time in very, VERY broken English, and took out his phone and asked me for my number, and asked me where I was going. Then the train came and he followed me on, and made me sit down next to him, and pawed at me a bit, and then got off with me when I disembarked at Toseon. He gestured at me to say that I was very pretty. No shit. He then tried to take my hand, but I fended him off. Then he proceeded to wait with me at the bus stop, and did not leave till the bus had arrived, upon which he grasped my hand and firmly shook it, and tried to pull me in for a hug, but I artfully dodged him and fled into the safety of the bus and left him behind. What an experience.

Gamcheon was lovely. Easily my top three in Busan. I had talked a bit with some of the other people staying in the hostel, who said that they were not very impressed, but I was in love. There was a fantastic panoramic view of the entire colourful village right after you got off the bus, and I stood there, soaking up all that beauty in happy delight. An elderly Korean couple came up to me and tried to ask me for directions, but I told them again that I didn't speak Korean, and they walked off, looking very disgruntled as they always do.

More to come.