Busan Old Downtown

I’ve Walked Past Gukje Market a Hundred Times — This Is What I Finally Noticed

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Souvenir shops inside Gukje Market selling K-pop merchandise and Korean goods

I live near enough to Gukje Market that I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve passed through it. But passing through and actually looking are two different things. Most visits were a blur — cutting through the covered alleys on the way to somewhere else, maybe grabbing something to eat, then moving on. It … Read more

I Used to Buy My Textbooks Here: A Personal Guide to Bosu-dong Book Street

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Narrow passageway inside Bosu-dong Book Street lined with used bookshops

When I was in college, buying brand-new textbooks was a luxury I couldn’t always afford. So, at the start of every semester, I made the exact same pilgrimage — weaving through the narrow alley between Gukje Market and Bupyeong Market, past towering stacks of paperbacks and yellowed spines, searching for whatever copies the upperclassmen had … Read more