Drenched in Busan
Busan’s parting gift to us was a storm. Not a drizzle, not an inconvenient sprinkle—no, this was a full-blown monsoon, the kind where you step outside and immediately regret every life choice that led you to this moment. The air was thick enough to drink, rain came at us sideways, and umbrellas? Useless. But we weren’t about to waste our last day in the city hiding indoors.
Lacey, one of my fellow travellers, and I had a plan: take the city bus tour, hop around to different sites, and maybe visit a museum or two. We started the morning with an optimistic albiet wet stroll to the bus stop which deposited us damp yet happiy in front of Busan’s famous department store complex, a shopping mecca so vast that it could easily swallow you whole. Originally, we wanted to knock out some sightseeing before heading to the bookstore, but once we stepped off the bus and saw the rain intensify, we knew we weren’t leaving anytime soon. So, we wandered. The place had everything: luxury brands, electronics, beauty stores, and, to my surprise, a full-fledged Gundam Base. My husband is a die-hard Gundam fan, so naturally, I snapped photos and picked up a souvenir.
Eventually, hunger got the best of us, and fate—or more accurately, Naver Maps—guided us to a restaurant specializing in mul-naengmyeon (멱면). These ice-cold buckwheat noodles floating in an umami-rich broth were something we'd both fallen in love with in Seoul. They weren’t just refreshing; they were salvation in a bowl, especially in this oppressive humidity. Getting in, however, was a challenge. The place was packed, the digital waitlist entirely in Korean, and when we finally got a table, there was no English menu, no cell signal to use a translator, and a waitress who looked deeply skeptical of our ability to order without making her life miserable. But after weeks in Korea, we managed. We fumbled through our order, I explained my shellfish allergy in passable Korean, and before long, we were slurping up the best damn noodles of the trip.
The elderly couple at the table next to us had been watching, amused. The woman smiled, waved, and as we were leaving, she told us—in slow, deliberate Korean—that our Korean was good. It was a small moment, but one that stuck with me. The whole meal had started with nerves and unease, but by the end, it felt like we belonged, even if just for a moment.
Full and content, we finally located the bookstore, which, as it turned out, wasn’t even in the same building. The bookstore hunt led us through yet another labyrinthine shopping center, past the largest Uniqlo I’ve ever seen, a sprawling food court, and floors upon floors of specialty shops before we finally found what we were looking for. Lacey hunted down a copy of Harry Potter, and I snagged The Little Prince—a fitting souvenir given how often that story had appeared on this trip. With books wrapped tightly in plastic against the relentless rain, we stepped back outside to face the storm.
The plan was to catch the tour bus back. The reality was standing at a bus stop, drenched, waiting for over twenty minutes as the rain intensified. Busan is known for being punctual, but apparently even the most reliable schedules collapse under the weight of a monsoon. When the bus finally arrived, it was an upgrade from the one we took earlier—air-conditioned, sealed from the elements, and equipped with screens translating historical landmarks into multiple languages. So we sat back, soaked but content, and let Busan’s story unfold around us. We passed Chinatown, the massive port where war refugees once arrived, and glimpsed a city shaped by migration, survival, and reinvention. Even in a downpour, Busan pulsed with energy.
By the time we reached our stop, the storm had escalated into something biblical. The wind was so strong that it turned our umbrellas inside out before promptly snapping my own in half. We were sprinting through ankle-deep puddles, physically shoved by the wind, slipping on rain-slicked pavement like a bad slapstick routine. By the time we made it back to the hotel, we were beyond soaked—waterlogged in a way that even my still-damp laundry couldn’t compete with. That was it for the day. No one wanted to venture back out, not even for dinner. I peeled off my wet clothes, cranked the hotel hairdryer in a desperate attempt to dry them, and took the hottest shower possible, trying to reclaim some semblance of warmth. That evening, I stayed in, watching K-dramas, eating convenience store ramen, and listening to the rhythmic drip-drip-drip of my laundry still hanging in the bathroom.
Tomorrow, we’d be leaving Busan. The next leg of our journey awaited, promising something entirely different from the neon glow of Haeundae Beach. But for now, I was content in this quiet, rain-soaked moment, letting the city’s energy settle in my bones one last time.
