~3.5h — the round trip from the gangway, with the 60-minute margin kept aside.
Tap a photo to see it large. 2 photographs, each credited.
Brown-sugar pancakes split and stuffed with seeds and nuts, fried while you watch — the street snack Busan invented and queues for daily. Pocket change, maximum joy.
How a port city became the centre of Asian cinema in about a decade
Ssiat hotteok is a Busan variant of a Korean street pancake: fried, split open and stuffed with seeds and nuts. It appeared around BIFF Square in the 2000s. The square is named for the Busan International Film Festival and has handprints of directors set into the pavement.
Busan started a film festival in 1996 with borrowed money and a district of old cinemas. It is now the largest in Asia, it has a building with the longest cantilevered roof in the world, and the square where it started is named after it — which is why you are eating a seed pancake in a place called BIFF Square.
Nampo-dong was Busan's cinema district, and in 1996 it hosted the first Busan International Film Festival — which became the largest in Asia. The square is named after it and directors' handprints are set into the pavement, now underneath the food stalls.
Behind it, Gukje Market is kilometres of covered alleys that grew out of the Korean War, when this was where the refugee city bought everything. It burned catastrophically in 1953 and rebuilt. It is still the rain plan for this whole city.
Screens that are still operating
Before Korean cinema was known abroad
And the platform for a national film boom
~85 m of unsupported cantilever, and an LED ceiling
Eat at BIFF Square and look down — the directors' handprints are in the pavement under the food stalls.
The one the queue agrees on, the one people who live here use instead, and the one nearest your ship. Opening days change; check before you build a day around one.
Fried, split and stuffed with seeds. The square is named for the film festival and has directors’ handprints in the pavement.
Open in Google MapsClosest to the berthGukje Market food alley국제시장 먹자골목One block over, and the same snack among a hundred others.
Open in Google MapsBoth pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Ssiat hotteok — a griddled sugar pancake cut open and packed with sunflower and pumpkin seeds and peanuts, served scalding, so wait before biting. Also eomuk fish cake on skewers with free broth you refill yourself, and dwaeji gukbap shops in the surrounding streets.
Kilometres of covered alleys behind BIFF Square that grew out of the Korean War, when Busan's refugee population bought everything here. It burned catastrophically in January 1953 and rebuilt. Because it is entirely roofed, it is the default plan when it rains in this city.
Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
See · ~5h round tripA hillside of Lego-colored houses threaded with art alleys and the Little Prince gazing over it all.
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See · ~4hKorea’s greatest fish market — tanks of everything the strait holds, auntie vendors in rubber boots, and lunch upstairs minutes after you pointed at it..
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Eat · ~4hBusan’s soul in a bowl — milky pork broth, rice, wild chives.
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