The Brixham of South Korea

The tourism industry likes to go for the Santorini comparison when promoting Gamcheon Village, but I haven't been to Santorini. Where I have been is Brixham in Devon, England, so that'll do.

Boy, have I been to Brixham. It was my Nana's favourite place in the world (based on her extensive travels in several parts of England and Wales, and that one time her son forced her to take a ferry to Calais and back in an optimistic attempt to broaden her horizons), so that meant I spent many formative summers relying on joke shops, Sonic the Comic and Bruce Coville's Aliens Ate My Homework saga to stave off the boredom in the coastal town they forgot to close down.

Yeah, like I would have been in my element in Ibiza or something. I'll clearly end up back in Brixham when this is all over.

Busan-d another thing

I knew I'd end up back in Busan at the end of my Korea trip, to catch the boat to Japan. What I hadn't anticipated was a friend's medical emergency taking place around this time, and their need for me to bail them out of Singapore's extortionate hospital fees. This drained my Japan funds and meant I had to extend my stay in comparatively cheap South Korea for another month, spending my time writing about engaging topics like trust management and concrete epoxy coatings until I could earn it all back again. Still, at least it's something fresh to moan about - that's always welcome.

I can't think of a better country to be 'stranded' in though, especially as I'd met some good people in Gyeongju and had the chance to hang out with them more back in Seoul. But this did mean I'd now returned to Busan for a few days for no reason at all, especially as I'd have to come back again in another month. It's becoming the Kuala Lumpur of North East Asia. It's a good thing Korean buses are relatively cheap, so I don't have to worry about my criss-crossing journeys over the peninsula making any kind of logical or narrative sense.

Besides, it gave me the chance to see a couple of things I didn't have time for on my first visit, when I apparently broke my leg or something. Who offered to pay for my medical bills then?

Busan-d one more thing

It's very easy to get around in South Korea since they installed Stargates in all major city centres. It's faster than the KTX, but there is the minor possibility that your atoms could be scrambled or scattered across the cosmos, or that flange-voiced aliens imitating the Ancient Egyptian gods could enslave your planet. But that's the price of progress.

I'll probably be back in Busan before the month is out to take the ferry across to the amusingly named Fukuoka and begin my Japan tour, but this city in South-East South Korea was a nice end to my Christmas holiday. That's right, I'm still on December - rest assured I've done practically nothing but sit around in my pants and eat bulgogi in the weeks since, so we'll soon be up to date.

Taejongdae is a good day to die

...or at least to do unspecified damage to your ankle. I hoped to explore Busan's scenic areas by hopping between city tour buses along the Taejongdae and Haeundae routes, but had to cut things abruptly short when it became clear I couldn't actually walk any more and literally had to hop into a taxi. Never mind, I still saw some pretty nice things.

Twisted my Busankle

Well, that taught me a lesson. Hurrying up and down the twisting staircase of a lighthouse in Busan's Taejongdae coastal park like an impatient child, I put a foot wrong and treated my ankle to the novel experience of an angle it hadn't experienced before.

The pain wasn't too great at first, but bode its time throughout the afternoon to produce incrementally heightened levels of agony each time I stood up after a lengthy sit down in a bus or cafe. To borrow a familiar example from the literary canon, it was like those ghosts in the Sandopolis Zone, Act 2 of Sonic and Knuckles that grow larger and more menacing the longer you fail to deal with them. No?

I tried to play it cool and ignore the pain, but after a while I sounded exactly like Alan Partridge after he pierces his foot on a spike. ('Ooooh, it's a good paper.') We really don't have any reference points in common, do we?