All good in the hood

We’ve been in our new apartment for about two weeks now and I thought I’d share some of its mod cons:

We live on the tenth floor of an 18 storey block in Dong-bu Hyundai, Sajik-dong in an apartment - paid for and allocated by our school - which is thankfully somewhat more spacious than the typical studio deal dished out to most foreign teachers. We have been told that before us a family lived here, meaning it’s just about large enough to house our space hungry western asses, consisting of three bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room/kitchen and a balcony.

Our building is a pretty cheek to jowl living space. In Glasgow we’d go for weeks without knowing anyone else shared our tenement, but here we have constant reminders of the lives stacked above, below and either side of us. Cooking smells waft in and out like an over-familiar visitor, while the triumphs and torments of nightly recorder practice seep through the walls like rising damp. Last Wednesday evening, as Korea was soundly defeating America in Olympic Baseball, I muted the TV and to my surprise heard a loud cheer all around me. Baffled at first, it soon struck me that the cheers were coming from individual apartments.

Straddling a long, sweaty climb, the area itself is pretty much as far into the hills as you can go without living in a temple, meaning our location can be problematic. Only one bus comes up here, a little number 5 that powers up and down all day like an ajuma workhorse. The bus takes about 10 minutes to get to the subway, but to get to school we must take a taxi – an inexpensive mode of transport but one that landed us in some inconvenient places until our Korean improved. Dong-bu also boasts a few shops, a bakery, an expensive looking restaurant and what I think is a brothel; not exactly Seomyeon but enough to cater for the day-to-day needs of most residents.

Even further up the hill a path winds into the mountain, past a Buddhist temple – a striking but not unfamiliar sight in Busan – and up in amongst the trees. From here there are some pretty sweeping views of the city. Far to the south a suspension cable from the huge Gwangali bridge is just about visible behind one of the green topped mounds that poke above the surface of the city like islands, while farther away still the black line of the horizon marks the Sea of Japan from the sky. From here the city slowly tapers inland, wrapping its way around the bluffs and hills before hazily meandering out of sight to the north.

Despite the accessibility problems I’m growing found of our little neighbourhood. It’s nice to back on to the mountain, and be able to see both green and city from our modest balcony, and I’m pretty sure we’ll soon start to recognise some of our Korean neighbours who smile politely at the Waygooks in their midst. Although if given the choice, I’d definitely live somewhere more central, for now at least, Dong-bu will do.

Chalet Suisse

One of the things I like about Korea is its seemingly endless capacity to surprise me. This was certainly true on Saturday night, when after a good (but by no means overwhelming) plate of Vietnamese rice noodles with seafood, a friend opted to spend the remainder of her farewell evening in the intimate and eccentric surroundings of Chalet Suisse a "Swiss Folk Music Cafe" in the Pusan National University district.


Skippered by the affable Mr Lee, and his grinning Setter/Spaniel “Clarinet,” Chalet Suisse transports its occaisonal patrons (numbering no more than about 10 at one time) from the scooters and blaring neon of the Busan street to the intimate confines of a swiss log cabin high in the Alps.


Upon entering the small space, the uniqueness of Chalet Suisse becomes clear. On one side of the room, a huge mural depicts a majestic Alpine scene of blue skies, rolling slopes and jagged peaks, while the remainder of the wall space is given over various items of Swiss culture and provenance; Male and female traditional folk costumes hang in dry cleaning bags on one wall, a cast iron leaf weaved with various wooden dolls and puppets straddles the door, while photos of a younger Mr Lee (presumably in Switzerland) hang proudly in the gaps.


Added to this is an orchestra of musical instruments. Covered shapes betraying the larger string instruments loaf in the corners, while a brigade of beautifully crafted and exotically shaped ukeles, banjos and the like hang pragmatically from a roof beam. As the evening progressed, Mr Lee produced and played a number of these instruments, accompanying yodelling songs with a Guitar, a Banjo and an Accordian, and at one point eliciting that I was from Ireland, playing “Danny Boy” on the Clarinet.


Chalet Suisse is undoubtedly a labour of love and appears to be more a place where Mr Lee can indulge his passion with friends than a business (after we ordered drinks he had to run out to the shop to buy them!) Going there renewed in me the sense that there is something special and uplifting in the human spirit’s capacity to find and cultivate a passion, even from the most remote and diverse of backgrounds, and I cannot but admire Mr Lee’s commitment and sincerity.


I aim on dropping by again when I’m next in PNU. Europe may be thousands of miles away, but at least Switzerland is only a couple of stops on the subway.

Galbi glorious Kalbi!

On our first weekend in Busan, my cousin Steve and his girlfriend Vicky took us to a Galbi restaurant. Since then, the thing has kind of snowballed for me and the Duch, culminating in the infamous "day of two Galbis."

As you might have guessed, Galbi is damnably good, and a typical experience could be described as follows:

You arrive at the Galbi restaurant with your companions and are immediately hit by the distinctive sounds and smells of sizzling flesh. As you breathe in, the aroma permeates every cell in your body, turning your mouth into a swimming pool and pulling your belly up into your chest. By the time you reach your table you are about 100 times hungrier than when you were at the door, a situation exacerbated by the visual effect of Galbi being consumed heartily all around you.

You sit down at the table, and after a cursory glance at the menu the Korean amongst you orders for everyone. If there isn’t a Korean amongst you don’t worry – these restaurants basically serve one thing and God gave you fingers for a reason. After the order has been dispatched you attempt polite chat but it’s hard to concentrate. You pick at the Kimchi (fermented cabbage in chilli sauce) with your chopsticks and prod a few other side dishes distractedly.

Just as your stomach starts calling you names your server arrives with a big plate of chicken marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli and garlic (I think) and slides it into the smoking circular pan in the middle of the table. It instantly hisses into life, popping and spitting and catching as your server kneads the chicken around the pan expertly with two great big wooden spatulas. It cooks like this for 5 minutes or so, your server every so often returning to massage it until, with a final flourish, he sets the spatulas to one side and turns down the heat. It’s now ready to eat.

Delirious with excitement, you extend a pair of trembling chopsticks into the pan, pinch a piece of chicken and place it on a sesame leaf along with some thinly sliced onions from your bowl of soy sauce, and a dab of spicy bean paste. You then wrap up the whole neat little bundle and pop it in your mouth in one go, taking care to allow a dribble of soy sauce to run down your chin. The finely serated sesame leaf, lightly perfumed and almost sweet tasting competes ably with the deep, brooding heat and flavour of the chicken, which you find particularly tasty where it has charred and become semi-stuck to the pan.

This process is then repeated until about half the Galbi has been eaten, at which point rice is added to the pan followed by – if you are that way inclined (and I think you are) - cheese. The rice has the effect of turning the pan into a great big paella type thing, while the melting cheese, although admittedly an odd addition, binds the whole mixture together perfectly into lovely chopstick-friendly clumps.

An indeterminable amount of time passes, you rediscover your companions, then without quite knowing how you got there you find yourself at the till making patting motions appreciatively and paying another ludicrously small amount.

You love Korean food.