Thursday morning (August 18) we headed across town to the Gamcheon Culture Village. It's located on a hilly edge of Busan. It was amazing that the bus we were riding could get up the steep, windy streets.
Here is a view of Busan getting near Gamcheon. You can see how the houses just go up the sides of the hill.
And then we arrived and could see the area itself, which was even steeper, with narrow houses clinging to the side of the hill.
It's so steep there are very few roads through the area, mostly just pedestrian paths following the contours of the hill and steep staircases running perpendicular.
We saw some old photos; the area was first developed after the Korean War when they needed space to put refugees. They built narrow buildings in the steep area.
Over time the old shacks have been rebuilt, and it has developed into kind of a hipster community, with colorful houses, little shops, art installations, etc.
Most of the houses are residential. Here is a very Korean scene of kimchi jars and drying red peppers on a roof.
But much of the economy of the neighborhood seems to be based on tourism, as people come to see the sights. Here is one little shop near the entrance. This seems to be more catering to the locals rather than the hip, trendy souvenir shops we saw a lot of further into the area.
A close-up of the sign -- their specialties are coffee, corn, and insect pupae.
There is art everywhere. One of the running themes was these wooden plaques shaped kind of like fish that were decorated in random ways. I'm not sure where they came from -- kids in school painting them for art projects, maybe?
Large metal dragonflies on a concrete retaining wall. Why not?
Birds in winter gear perched on a cafe.
There are a lot of art installations inside of houses, too. This one had the interior covered with black plastic. It was supposed to represent the impermanence of life and the vastness of the universe or something like that.
Looking out over Gamcheon toward the ocean.
The view to the south.
Looking back east toward the Busan harbor. The building in the center is the Lotte Mall, which was on the schedule for later in the day. At the very left you can see Busan Tower, also coming up this evening.
Funny sign at a lookout point.
Trekking onward.
A hip little art shop.
Everything was up and down. This is a relatively gentle slope for the area.
Pairs of pants with nobody inside them.
Art is everywhere.
A little resting spot on top of a house.
The stairs were really steep and narrow. The photos really don't do it justice.
Playing around with angles on the steep hill.
Another little art exhibit we came across.
The photos really don't convey how steep and narrow everything was.
More random art.
Taking a break from the steepness and heat.
We decided it was time to head back. The shortest route back to the bus stop was up a long set of stairs.
They were under construction in spots, which made it even more interesting.
Most of the way up. You can see somebody had painted numbers on the steps -- we just passed 170. I think the total count for this staircase was about 230, if I remember right.
We stopped in at a convenience store to recharge our bus/train cards, and then we were off again.
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