Busan, South Korea

I arrived in Busan early yesterday morning and it felt good to be back in Korea.  I absolutely loved Japan and feel like my trip there was too short but like the sun on it’s flag it’ll burn a deep hole through you wallet despite your best efforts.  I wandered around Busan for a few hours working up an appetite. I stumbled upon a hole in the wall cafeteria: literally a back alley entrance to a loading dock warehouse where some old ladies were hand making fresh ramen like pasta and Kimpap. It had a good group of what appeared to be the average Korean worker so I told myself it had to be decent food. It smelled delicious so I sat down and ate a filling meal for 3500 won (that’s about 3.5$ Canadian). Just one of the many reasons I love Korea ;-)

The old Korean ladies tried to ask me a few questions and I explained to them that I only knew basic Korean and didn’t understand them (using some of the few phrases I know).

On the way to the cheap hotel I was staying at a taxi driver pulled over to the side of the street and honked his horn while pointing at me. I wasn’t sure he was pointing directly at me because there was a Korean lady walking beside me as well. So I pointed to myself and he nodded his head. I approached the taxi wondering what he could possibly want and he said “You Ruskie?” (there is a large Russian community in Busan) and I said “ani” (no).  He then moved onto the next best guess “You American?”, before this went on too long I answered once more “Ani” and added “Canadian”.

He offered to shake my hand with a friendly smile and said in broken English “Money good neh?”.  I answered “why” in Korean which sounds a little bit like “way” in English.  He then put a large stack of Korean bills in my hand.  If I had to guess from the look of the stack it had to be at least 100 000 to 200 000 won (about 100-200$ Canadian).

Now as tempting as it was to simply smile and take the money; no one in this world we live in will simply give you a stack of bills without strings attached.  Whether it’s a hustle or con I don’t know.  Maybe he wanted to give me the bills and then contact the police to say I had mugged him or maybe the bills were counterfeit.  Regardless as soon as he tried to put a stack of bills into my hand I simply said “Ani, ani, ani” refused to close my hands on them, smiled and stepped away from the cab.  As I started walking the taxi man drove off.

Maybe I missed my chance for some free money, but I think I avoided some trouble. Remember kids if it’s too good to be true chances are it is….

I’m off to explore Busan and to visit a nice Jazz bar tonight!