The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important, we mustn’t be pedants; we were not to feel superior to anyone else in the world.

Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451”

After three and a half months of fast travel, my trip took a hard left. Instead of moving from one place to another every few days (sometimes even on a daily basis), a whole month at a hostel in Busan began, which I helped cleaned five days a week in exchange for a free bed.

From convenience stores, to grocery stores and cooking. From spending money all the time, to saving it. From sightseeing nonstop, to passing full days at the hostel, working on my computer, and socializing with people.

Such a dramatic departure had stemmed from budgetary constraints, yet turned out more than economically valuable in the end.

Note: since I am going to mention the same people again and again for five posts, I’m going to give them all aliases.

• Owner – owner of the hostel, 41yo guy. Originally from Cananda, he seemed (and acted) way younger. Fond of drinking and talking about being horny.
• C.H. – one of the staff members, 28yo guy. Bespectacled, served in the navy, intensely shy.
• Nacho – Korean-American female staff member in her early thirties, originally from L.A., in charge of the volunteers. Bespectacled, hilarious, and plump, with a BTS haircut and a crazy sleep routine.
• Chica – Spanish volunteer / actress from Madrid, 34yo girl. Short, perky, petite, with long, straight hair and freckles.
• Lil G – Mexican volunteer, 33yo guy. He’s my height, yet three times thicker than me, like a bodyguard.
• Painter – Brazilian volunteer, guy in his late thirties. Been here for around five months. Half of the time, he painted the hostel instead of cleaning.
• Horizon – Israeli volunteer, 22yo girl. Half Turkish, half Indian, sensitive yet tough.
• Ryu – German volunteer, 22yo girl. Platinum-dyed hair, straight, black eyebrows. Fluent in Japanese, having spent senior year of high school in Osaka. Also, intermediate in Korean.
• Q – Spanish volunteer from Barcelona, 20yo girl. Thin glasses, curly hair like a poodle’s (her own description).
• P.V. – Peruvian volunteer, a guy whose age I don’t remember. Short yet feisty.
• Mon chéri – French volunteer, 22yo (?) girl. A tall, redheaded beauty, she’s the party girl, with a  thick, sultry accent and a love of coffee.
• Cosima – Romanian volunteer now living in the island of Sardinia, 27yo girl. With glasses, a bob cut, and a sharp nose, she possessed deep knowledge of Korea (and delicious ability of cooking Korean food). I picked Cosima, the feminine version of Cosmo, due to her cosmopolitan nature.
• Angel – 27yo French girl with long curly hair, black glasses, and an olive skin, staying at the hostel for a month, studying Korean in Busan. Her long term residency and bubbly personality made her an instant addition to the volunteer group.

28 May 2023

• Metro to Beonmaegol station
• Checking into my hostel for the next month

A New Home

I left my guesthouse at 11:00. My suitcase zipper burst after trying to haphazardly fit everything in. It remained precariously half-open.

Busan was drizzling nonstop. It reminded me of summer in Norwich.

I rode the metro downtown to my hostel for the next four weeks. The neighborhood I’d stayed in was just as deserted in daytime. So was the station.

Then I saw for myself why the Austrian guy from my hostel in Jeju had called this hostel very big.

Eight floors, 19 volunteers. Super nice staff. The owner was a 41-years-old Korean-Canadian man (who seemed criminally younger); one of the staff members, a 28-years-old local guy; and the other, a Korean-American woman in her early thirties.

The latter had celebrated her birthday yesterday.

“Are you the Buddha reincarnated?” I asked.

Many volunteers were about to leave this week, though. People usually came and went around the passing of the months.

I was supposed to stay in a small room with one other guy, but the hostel was fully booked. It was the long weekend (Friday and Monday off for Buddha’s birthday), and they had maxed out the volunteers. Thus, I was given a bottom bunk bed in a guest dormitory for the next three days.

I talked to a bunch of guests and volunteers – from Brazil, France, the US, the UK, even a guy from Japan.

He was 25, from Matsuyama, a place I’d almost visited after doing Shimanami Kaido. We talked for hours in the common area, about Japan, Korea, and travel. He’d thanked me for “saving” him from an eager Korean uncle who was studying Japanese.

The Matsuyama guy had travelled throughout Southeast Asia, and in two days, after brief bouts in Taiwan and Korea, would return to Japan. (“There might be a typhoon, so I’m waiting to hear if my flight will be cancelled.”)

Spending so much time with a Japanese guy around my age was something I’d been missing these past three weeks. It was different than talking to a Korean. I liked the way he mimicked anime-crying by twisting his fists near his eyes. There might be a typhoon – anime cry. Summer in Matsuyama was forty degrees and humid – anime cry. There were flying cockroaches – anime cry. I wanted to add Matsuyama to my list for Japan.

At some point, I went upstairs to take care of my laundry. After a few minutes of absence, I returned to our table in the common area.

“お久しぶり,” he said. (“Long time no see.”)

“え？” I exclaimed, certain I’d misheard him. “なんと言った？久しぶり？“ (“What did you say? Long time no see?”)

“お久しぶり,” he echoed, and laughed.

He said this every time we ran into each other.

He had known virtually none of the non-touristy places I’d visited. When I showed him my jinbei and samue, he asked what they were.

Today was my first day in a long time of no sightseeing. Only in Tokyo, a month ago, did it happen on this trip.

Busan would be rainy for the next few days. It was high time to lay low, recharge, do all the errands I’d been holding off, and plan my next weeks in Korea.

Today’s highlight: hanging out with the Matsuyama guy.

29 May 2023

• 13:30-15:30 sheets

First Shift at the Hostel

9:00, alone in the common area. A hostel of late risers.

I spent the morning reading about attractions in Busan and all over the country. I knew nothing about Korea, apart from Seoul and Jeju Island.

At 13:00, the time had come to start volunteering. Every day, the volunteers gathered around the big table in the common area (there were plenty of additional, smaller ones) for what usually lasted 1.5 hours. The terms agreed upon specified two hours per day, five days a week, with two days off (excluding the busiest day, Sunday).

Nacho, in charge of the volunteers, was also usually late.

So, at 13:30, she arrived and broke the news. The entire fifth floor had checked out.

“Welcome,” the volunteers told me, much to everyone’s amusement. It soon became clear that today was the worst day they had experienced here.

Volunteers always started by learning sheets. No one wanted to volunteer for such a difficult task today, though. Finally, the four of us split into 2 groups: one stripping the sheets, and the other putting them on.

Everyone volunteering at this hostel was bright and twentysomething. (I later learned some were in their thirties.) The cleaning team always finished first, then joined the sheets team, the last to finish.

We did the last floor quickly together, and finished at 15:30. Two hours, just as advertised.

Afterwards, I went to a large grocery store a 10-minute walk, and bought tofu, mushrooms, bok choi, lettuce, protein bars, Greek yogurt, eggs, and an entire freshly-cut pineapple with a huge discount. Everything cost one day’s food budget.

Back in the hostel, I wolfed down half of the pineapple, moaning in the kitchen. I cooked a late lunch using leftover rice from one of the guests, and finished doing my research in the common area.

The volunteers didn’t seem intent on socializing. They all sat in their own table.

“Oh, well,” I thought. “They leave in two days anyway.”

A Spanish girl from Madrid arrived, the newest addition to the volunteering bunch. Short, tan, long, straight hair, freckles; a heavy accent, and an infectious grin.

We had dinner and talked for hours. She’d been traveling Southeast Asia for 3-4 months, and now came to Korea for a month. An actress who wrote and acted in a Spanish language series on YouTube inspired by K-dramas. This was her reason for coming here: to film scenes in famous locations.

She showed me her videos, and we talked about Korea. I offered to help if she needed a cameraman, mentioning my little experience in making short films, and being a writer.

“Oh, it’s so nice –“ she paused, trying to find the words.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I completed.

“Nice to find you,” she said.

Soon enough, it was time for bed.

Today’s highlights: fresh pineapple; meeting the newest volunteer.

30 May 2023

• 13:05-14:45 sheets

Settling into Life in Korea

I was feverishly writing my sister’s paper alone in the common area, when I flinched.

“ケセンさん,” The Matsuyama guy said. (“Kesem-san.”)

“え,” I exclaimed, so absorbed in my work that I hadn’t noticed him sitting right next to me. “お久しぶり.” (“Long time no see.”)

We had breakfast together. Then it was time for his flight.

“LINEの交換 –” I started (“LINE contact details”) during our final moments together, when he exclaimed:

“あ！いいですか？”

He seemed excited by this, so I wondered if Asians were truly this hesitant. I recalled previous moments like this, when I was too shy to initiate such an exchange.

As he checked out, I promised to visit Matsuyama someday.

Then, lunch with Chica, followed by our shift. I stripped the sheets before helping put on fresh ones. Today was much easier than yesterday.

Many guests were fast asleep during our shifts. I felt bad for disturbing them, and did my chores as quietly as possible (which wasn’t that quiet).

The weirdest thing was when a guy was just reading a book in bed. Why hadn’t he gone out to explore the city? I wondered, growing uncomfortable. I was rapidly changing sheets, while he was lounging and reading, as if he had all the time in the world, and no cares. It felt slightly demeaning.

Another thing that happened during the shift: one of the volunteers leaving today had noticed me wearing a yukata in the common area last night.

“I think you shouldn’t do that,” she advised, reminding me of Japan and Korea’s bloody history.

Of course. How could I forget.

The idea that some people would be offended by the Japan was so ludicrous to me, that I’d worn my Japanese outfits freely around Korea. But she was right. I wouldn’t do it again.

In the afternoon, I went grocery shopping again, and bought a fake cheese gratin from 7/11.

“Hey,” a German girl with a pixie cut, who passed my table in the common area, said. “Is that vegetarian?”

“Yeah, but it’s disgusting,” I replied. “It’s the only thing I could find without meat.”

We discussed the challenges Korea posed for people who avoided meat. She gave me the address of a good, local restaurant.

So, for dinner, I went there with a local guy.

First Date in Korea

It was just as the girl had described. A non-touristy place, with only locals. English nowhere. The menu was comprised of four dishes: three with meat, and one with tofu.

I ate doenjang-jjigae, bean paste stew. Slightly shaken to find crab legs inside. I sucked on them to eat the flesh.

But the star of this restaurant was the side dishes. The aunties filled out table with countless small plates of endless variety. My date, a 23-years-old art major enrolled in Seoul’s Hongik University, the top art school in Korea, was just as wide-eyed.

“This is very rare in Korea,” he said.

He wore a baseball cap the entire time. His mask was always down his chin. His slender fingers, adorned with silver rings.

I hadn’t even gotten to my rice yet, when an auntie came with a refill.

“Why aren’t you eating?” she urged me with a look of concern. As the German girl had said, refills of side dishes were common here.

The meal cost precisely as any other cheap restaurant in Korea. The food was bountiful and delicious. The atmosphere was traditional. I marveled at this hidden gem.

We walked around Seomyeon, Busan’s nightlife district. To my pleasant surprise, it was a mere 10-minute walk from the hostel. I learned that he was a painter aspiring to pursue it full-time, like my first host from Seoul. We visited a sex shop in Seomyeon with hilarious memes.

Back in the common area, the German girl and I went on and on about food recommendations. She added tons of cheap restaurants, from all over Korea, to my map. In return, I gave her tons of tips about her next destination, Japan.

“I spend way too much time looking at food online,” she said.

I thanked her for the amazing recommendation, and resolved to return there once a week during my month in Busan.

She checked out tomorrow before I could give her my number. I managed to get the Matsuyama guy’s, but not hers.

Today’s highlights: dinner with the local guy.

31 May 2023

• 11:10-12:20 bus number 80 to Beomeosa Temple Entrance, 12:25-12:35 bus number 90 to Beomeosa Temple Parking Lot
• Beomeo-sa temple (40m)
• 13:25-13:30 temple back to the entrance stop, 13:55-14:40 Beomeosa subway station (bus stop in front of exit 7) to bus number 1002 to Centum Sensiville, Bus number 100-1 to Songjeon Beach Entrance 14:50-15:25
• Walking from Songjeon beach to Haedong Yonggung-sa temple (~1h)
• Haedong Yonggung-sa temple (1h)
• 18:50-18:55 Gijanghaean-ro stop to Osiria station bus number 1001, 19:00-19:40 Osiria station to Bujeon station metro, 20:05-20:15 Bujeon Market stop to Samgwang-sa Temple Entrance stop minibus number 15
• Samgwang-sa temple (1h)
• 21:30-21:40 Seonggok traditional market entrance to Beomnaegol station bus number 81

The only sunny day this week, and the last day of temples featuring colorful lanterns, in celebration of the Buddha’s birthday.

The choice was obvious. I took only one day of this week (choosing to have 3 next week instead), in order to visit three remote temples.

Breakfast with Chica. She was the only volunteer who woke around the same time as me. Before 12:00, the others were never to be seen.

Once again, I was glued to my computer. Reading about Korea, compiling a list of things to do, and planning itineraries. Searching for accommodations in Korea and Japan.

The past few days, on top of all of this, my family had sent me a couple of job opportunities. Thus, I was busy sending cover letters and resumes.

The cherry on top was a paper my sister had asked for me to write. She was a med student in Cyprus, tasked with writing a paper about art and medicine. Since neither art nor medicine were her forte, it was obvious that the baton would be passed to me.

“You’re working too hard!” Chica berated me.

Yet in-between all this, I talked to every guest I saw – Dutch, German, English, French. It was hard when people came for 1-2 nights only, while I would be here for a month. So many of them would take the ferry to Fukuoka. I wanted to do that for my return to Japan, rather than fly again. But Kyushu in the summer was a no. The weather was horrendous. And a typhoon was threatening to cancel the guests’ ferry (the Matsuyama guy had beaten it to the punch). The staff said the ferry got cancelled on a regular basis.

Beomeo-sa Temple

While Chica volunteered, I started off in the north outskirts with Beomeo-sa temple, recommended to me by the local guy from last night.

I took the bus instead of the metro. It was a beautiful day: 22 degrees, clear weather.

Beomeo-sa, one of the 25 major temples in Korea and the center of Seon (Zen) practice, included 11 hermitages. Up on a mountain surrounded by green hills, with bamboo groves on its grounds and ample quiet. A gushing river at the entrance, and colorful lanterns being taken off in the main court.

Bummer.

A water fountain was flowing through a huge bamboo stick. More people doing 108 prostrations and reading sutras, as though their lives depended on it. I passed a lantern cemetery. Soon enough, there wasn’t anything else for me to do.

Songjeon Beach

I took three buses to Songjeon beach in the eastern outskirts. Busan seemed like a nondescript city: buildings and a few temples spread out on the outskirts. Navigating wasn’t as convenient as in Seoul, because buses were used for those areas, rather than the metro. Traffic was heavy, and the buses stopped at every station.

There weren’t a lot of public parks or world heritage sites, like the grand palaces. I supposed the focal point of the city was the coastal walks and beaches; food markets; and nightlife.

Two intense weeks in Seoul with no rest, and I managed to cover only half of my list. Busan, on the other hand… if it weren’t for the volunteering, I wouldn’t have spent more than a week here.

Songjeon beach was known as Surfer’s Paradise. Busan’s best waves. Paragliders and paddleboards. Clear, blue water; yellow sand. Sunny, breezy weather.

I ate lunch in a rest pavilion overlooking the ocean. Then, walked half an hour along the northeastern shore (eerily deserted, with what seemed to be abandoned offices) and met Chica after her shift, near Haedong Yonggung-sa temple.

Haedong Yonggung-sa Temple

It was my first time standing inside a temple and hearing waves crashing.

Finally, the Korean temple experience I’d been itching for. A huge complex by the sea. Heart-shaped wishing papers glistening on branches. A golden Buddha on the coast.

Chica was an influencer on TikTok, active on a daily basis, so I took plenty of videos and photos of her. At some point, while she was filming herself explaining about Korea, I stumbled upon Lil G and Painter, two Hispanic volunteers from the hostel. Our conversation was a bit awkward. I hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with them.

Later, I climbed stone steps with Chica to a viewpoint with a huge Buddha overlooking the temple and sea.

After 45 minutes of exploring the complex, we rested at the temple’s café (so big, it had a café!). It was equipped with chargers of both kinds.

A discussion of our mutual desire of becoming a nomad ensued. Neither of us missed home.

“I love Spain, but I want to travel the world,” she said in her adorable, thick accent. “There’s so much to see. And some people don’t have that aspiration. I understand it, but I don’t have that feeling. I talk to my mom, but I don’t need to see her every day. I have a friend from Madrid who returns to his tiny village, 300 people, every time he has vacation, instead of going abroad.”

I liked the way she never slurred, pronouncing words perhaps a little too loudly and clearly at times. Her “yes” (pronounced “jes”) was especially entertaining.

Outside the temple, we ate a delicious honey cheese pancake. She said something in Spanish to me, stopped, and laughed.

“I talk to you in Spanish because I’m now comfortable with you, so my brain is a little…”

The French guy from my last days in Seoul had been doing the same, reverting to French around me.

Samgwang-sa Temple

We took the bus, metro, and a minibus to our final temple for the day, in the city center. The minibus was full of tiny aunties, some of them sitting on the floor.

Samgwang-sa was the proper finale for this temple day. Thousands of lanterns lit up at night. The main hall was the largest Buddhist culture hall in Korea; 10,000 people could hold a service simultaneously inside. Lots of Koreans in light gray uniform, praying, bowing, circling a pagoda. Probably here on a somewhat zealous temple stay.

“They look so nazi,” Chica remarked, pointing at the signs on the gigantic lanterns.

By now, the photos and videos she took were a bit excessive for me. We converged at some point. I explored the temple grounds, dark except for round pops of colors.

Finally, we walked down the hill to another bus. Stumbled upon a self-checkout snack shop with CCTV everywhere, and no staff.

I’d heard of those. She hadn’t. Videos ensued.

Unexpected Encounters at the Hostel

Back at the hostel, after this long day, I introduced myself to an American guest. A Thai girl soon approached me.

“What’s up?” she asked in Hebrew.

I recoiled all the way to the end of my chair. Hebrew was the last thing I expected to hear. She’d assumed I was French, yet, upon hearing my name, figured I was Israeli.

She was in her early twenties, born to Thai immigrants in Tel Aviv. Super chill, easy to talk to. Once again, good vibes in the common area.

I went to make a quick call. A phone interview for a remote position at one of the companies I’d sent my resume to. They wanted me to start right away.

When I returned, a Japanese man was writing the Israeli girl’s name in calligraphy. He was a calligrapher and performance artist from Osaka with his own TV show, who now divided his time between his home town (right in the city center, near Shinsaibashi), Tokyo (right in the central part of Asakusa, by the station, with a view of Senso-ji from his room), and Fukuoka.

Work had allowed him to travel the world. Out of all the hostels he’d been to, this was his favorite. He’d been staying here during his trips to Busan for five years now.

He seemed ecstatic to talk to me in Japanese and listen to the places I’d visited.

“There are too many Japanese people who haven’t visited Hokkaido,” he sighed. The guy from Matsuyama, for example, fell into that category.

He unsheathed a fancy-looking piece of paper, grabbed his brush, and closed his eyes. After concentrating for a moment, he wrote my name in Kanji, Hangul, and Katakana in master strokes. It was beautiful, and a souvenir I would cherish and frame one day. I gave him some of the crushed matcha KitKat I’d been carrying in my bag since coming to Korea.

The day ended with thoughts about my future and job offer. It was for a small Israeli company who was doing tour guides of Japan. They wanted me to write such guides for them.

After gushing endlessly about Japan my entire time in Korea, giving dozens of tourists tips, and visiting places even my Japanese friends hadn’t heard of, it occurred to me that such a position might be the next step for me. My productive habit of visiting tourist information centers in Japan made me want to work at one in Hokkaido.

Today’s highlights: the seaside Yonggung-sa temple; the lit-up lanterns at Samgwang-sa temple; having my name written by a calligraphy artist.

Stray observations:

• Apartment complexes in Korea are tight-knit identical skyscrapers differentiated by huge numbers on their façade. Yuck.
• Apart from laundry, the only other other thing more expensive than Japan is nattou. Three times the price.