Fish markets and naked men

So I probably got your attention with the naked part, and I'll get to it in a minute, I promise it's worth the wait! ha! To day we headed out to the big market in Busan called the Jagalchi market. It is the very quintessential asian market that we all thing of: a million venders all packed into tiny little areas selling basically everything under the sun. Each vender specializes, and I do mean specializes. One guys will be selling nothing but light fixtures, and the next guy nothing but light bulbs! And the competition was ferece, there would be a least a half dozen people specializing in the same item. There was a group of women who were selling nothing but dried beans, and they all had exactly the same types of beans. I found it really hard to believe that all of them could sell enough beans to make a living. My big score at the market was parts to fix Yanghee's sister's toilet. Oh, and I got the hole in my boot fixed for $10! The market was very night and day from the stores we had visited the day before. Yanghee says that the market is not only the poorer side of Korea, but it is also Korea past, while the fancy stores are the new Korea. You could see this in the shoppers as well. At the market it was almost all 40 year old and up, while at the department stories it was all people younger then 40. After the market we then went to a light house down by the ocean. From here you could see the docks and all the boats coming in and out of the port.

Ok, now for the naked story! I had heard about public bath houses and asked if we could go to one. Yanghee's sister, Sunhee, was excited about this idea because she loves them, but only goes once a year as a treat. So the 5 of us headed to her favorite bathhouse, Jungang haesu lendie. Now the thing about bathhouses is that you are naked in the bathing part, and because you are naked, men and women are separated. This meant that being the only man, I was going to be own my own to figure it out beyond the front door! To add to this, Sunhee's oldest son, Minwoo, who had recently turned 7, was now too old to go into the women side. Minwoo's entire English knowledge consists of 'hello' and 'have a nice day', which is about as much Korean as I know. Also the last time he had been to the bath house was when he was 6, and so he had about as much idea what do to as I did! I also soon found out that he also had about as much interest in soaking in a hot tub as he did going to the dentist. Long story short, with the aid of a friendly fellow who guided me through the basics of using the lockers and getting towels (lots of pointing), I found myself in a room full of naked Korean men, charged with taking care of a naked 7 year old who's number one priority was to find some sort of mistchif to get into! He stated with splashing other people, the dumping water on the floor, then splashing me! He would listen when I told him to stop any one thing, but would quickly find a new thing to do! Remember, EVERYONE is naked, I can't read or communicate with anyone other then gesturing, and I am probably the only non-Korean that has ever been in this place. It was a good adventure!