My Korea tour Day 4 – Travel guide to Jagalchi market

This I bet is something all of my fans are long waiting for. I’m really up to my neck in my daily works these days. Only this lazy afternoon had me sit down in front of my computer, sipping my cup of UCC roasted instant coffee, and started to blog about Korea again. Korea is getting hot as everyone’s travel destination these days thanks to the K-pop apparently. I visited Korea and this is my story of Korea travel continued.

After our Friday night explore to Gwangalli Beach Busan and trying the super duper great Samgyeopsal meal, we decided to visit Busan downtown on the next day. We went to the morning Jagalchi market and later to the Busan Tower, before seeing the world’s largest water fountain musical display in Lotte departmental store.

Started off our morning explore, we took a subway Line 2 train from where we stayed in Haeundae Beach to Seomyeon station and changed to Line 1 for Busan downtown’s Jagalchi Market station. you may also get off at Nampo station before this. Both stations can lead you to the dock where the Jagalchi fish market is.

The Jagalchi Market (자갈치시장) is Korea’s largest seafood market. After the Korean War the market solidified itself as a fish market. Most of the people who sell fish are women, so the women who sell here are called ‘Jagalchi Ajumma,’ ‘ajumma’ meaning middle-aged or married women.

This market represents Busan and is famous throughout the country. If you visit you can eat fresh raw fish right at the market. Even these days you can see women selling mackerel, sea squirts (ascidians) and whale meat on wooden boxes along the road.

Every year in October the Jagalchi Cultural Tourism Festival is held, and it is easy to visit because of the convenient transportation provided by the subway. The Jagalchi Market is where you can see the lifestyle of the indigenous Busan natives.

There are quite a few sections collectively called as the Jagalchi market. The waterfront building features an indoor wet fish market selling fresh seafood where tourists tasting the life octopus! Overseeing the see (part of the Japan Sea) and the ship dock, the large courtyard in front of the market building is a popular spot where local elderly spend their morning session.

That said, what excited me is actually the outdoor wet market next to the indoor market. There you can a lot more seafood and sea products, especially the row of eateries selling virtually the same thing, fried sea fish!

Spend a little while browsing some of my photos here capture in and around the Jagalchi Market and you will be amazed!

Have you seen shells this big and this much?

Live squid and fish.

This is called fish market!

Sorry, I can’t tell you the names of those fish.

Jagalchi fish market is the biggest seafood source for the local people and the size of it told me that.

Are these dried fish or squids? Can someone tell me? Sorry, I couldn’t understand Korean. 🙂

You can try some of these fish cake selling along the market. I don’t like it though… 🙁

On your right entering the outdoor market, this is the row of restaurants serving only fried fish.

This temptation in front of me urged us to try. I must eat them all!

We picked this shop. I couldn’t know if it is the best.

Price for the fried fish is K₩7,000 each. We ordered 3 different fish and the whole meal as seen above cost us a total of ₩22,000, or RM73, or USD20 only. I can tell you that the fried fish is absolutely delicious!

Look at the crowd inside the restaurant and you can tell why.

Off course, you need some other ingredients to cook seafood. Onion is one of them which is also sold here in the market.

And outside of the market you can find some stalls selling fruits. Mostly local fruits I bet.

You can see all these photos in full resolution on my Flickr album. To get there, check out the Google Map below.

Coming up next, we walked down the street and continued our Busan downtown explore in and around Yaongdusan Park! 🙂 – Travel Feeder