Busan: The Docks, man

After only a short time in the job, last week my school closed for the summer half of the 2 weeks annual vacation holiday. To be honest everything still feels something like a holiday at the moment so I didn’t really feel the need for a bit, but I thought I should do some travelling in Korea so I joined my co-workers and some of their friends on a trip to Busan.

Now I was in Busan last September for a conference with my previous job (in fact that basically precipitated my whole move to Korea), so it was a little strange to be back so soon. I remember arriving with no expectations at all, allowing those expectations to be met, and then over the course of a week, slowly becoming fascinated with the place. On my final day there last year I visited a serene mountain top Buddhist temple and also took an interminable taxi ride across city to the airport, going right through the heart of the docks, with lorries carrying Maersk containers and huge pieces of industrial plant clogging up the road. Of course, given my fascination with infrastructure and industrial urban clutter, it was a journey I didn’t want to end.

Busan is a city with a ridiculous topography. It spreads across the coastal strips and lower slopes of the great mountains and craggy peninsulas that break up this part of the south-eastern coast of Korea. This also gives Busan its reason for existence: the huge natural harbour, now home to the world’s fifth busiest seaport. Unfortunately this makes it hell to get around. In fact we seemed to divide our time almost equally between beautiful pine covered nature spots, great lumps of granite marching into the sea; and stuck in traffic jams trying to reach the next one. This contrast between the untamed natural beauty and dirty, unforgiving urbanism struck me as particularly Korean. But then I did have a lot of time to think about, and to take shots like the ones above. At one point our taxi driver took a shortcut right through the harbour and you could see up close the ship building, arc welding, hammering and lifting of port activity on the water’s edge and in dockside industrial sheds. It made me realise I’d never actually seen  a working port before, and think this is what it must have been like in Glasgow, Liverpool or London fifty years ago.  Later I was disappointed to find out that we’d missed the maiden voyage of the world’s largest ship by only a week. If I was writing the guidebook, I’d be advising travellers to wander around the backstreets there. Bring a smog mask though.