I first heard about Dr Fish two months ago on my first trip to Busan with some friends of mine. We had made our way to the coast to celebrate the three day weekend thanks to the celebration of Buddha's birthday. It was the first real summer weekend, and we were all looking forward to some quality tanning time. We arrived on the Friday afternoon and spent a couple of hours on the beach. I even braved the icy water before heading back to the group and warming back up on the sand. It was a glorious day. It was the only one. That night it started to rain, and it didn't stop all weekend. This put a serious damper on our plans to hike up to the temple. What were we going to do?
Kathryn mentioned it. She had read something about it in a blog on Busan and thought that it sounded interesting. I happened to agree. Having the dead skin cells of your feet sucked off by fish. It's not really something that you do every day. It's a story. An adventure. Something to write home about. But alas, the others were not quite as keen, and though Kathryn and I did keep an eye out for it on our minimal travellings, we were at a loss. We left Busan that Sunday with a day of sunshine and a night of partying under our belts and bags pull of soggy clothing on our bags.
This weekend I returned to Busan, and one of the first things that popped into my head when Zach asked me what I wanted to do was that I wanted to find Dr Fish. It turned out that Zach had also heard about this phenomenon and was equally intrigued. And so we did some research on Saturday morning (after a night of good food and slight tipsiness) and found out that there were two Dr Fish's in the area - one near the Kyungsung University subway station and the other near the Seomyeon subway station. Being closer to the Seomyeon station, we made our way there first.
"It's around the Judies Taehwa, I think on the same street as the burger king and the arcade with the lights in the sidewalk. It's on the third floor of the building, but I think they keep a sign on street level."
These were the directions that we found to the Dr Fish in Seomyeon. It sounded simple enough. Find the Burger King, and we would be set! We found the Burger King subway exit, and felt like we were really getting somewhere. We got onto the street and looked around us, expecting it to be right there. It wasn't. We walked around for a good ten minutes before actually finding the Judies Taehwa (skillfully spotted down an alley by myself) and quickly found the Burger King and arcade after that. But alas, no Dr Fish sign could be found. We looked at the third floors of the buildings all around us, looked at eye-level for a sign, walked around the block because maybe it was in a building nearby and eventually gave in to asking for directions. But alas, there was no Dr Fish in Seomyeon, at least as far as any of the people that we asked were concerned. We weren't deterred though. So the one in Seomyeon had probably closed. There was still another that we could go to.
"It's part of a new cafe replacing a Chinese fusion place, 2nd floor above NongHyup Bank, right across from Spark and Kyungsung entrance...called Dr. Fishfeet or something along those lines."
The directions to the second Dr Fish sounded far more promising, and so we headed slightly off the beaten path to Kyungsung to try again. We spotted the NongHyup on the map without too much trouble and headed towards the correct subway exit, filled with hope, our feet tingling for some fishy nibbles (well, I can't speak for Zach's feet. Only my own.) But alas once more! On arriving at the NongHyup and looking towards the second floor, we discovered that the Chinese fusion restaurant had been replaced by an Italian one. No Dr Fish for us.
With all hope gone, there was a sense of disappointment lingering in the air. No Dr Fish. No relaxing foot therapy. Sadness. But instead of wallowing in our sadness, we decided to check out the famous Jagalchi Fish Market - we were in a fishy mood after all! And so we made our way to Jagalchi and walked along streets filled with every kind of fish imaginable, and even some that aren't. My favourites were probably the orange, whiskered fish with the brilliant green and blue fins.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around Busan and visiting Chinatown and Haeyundai. While both were good fun, I think it was the fishy part of the weekend that I enjoyed the most. Here are some fishy photos so that you too can indulge in the fishiness of Busan in a small way.
Kathryn mentioned it. She had read something about it in a blog on Busan and thought that it sounded interesting. I happened to agree. Having the dead skin cells of your feet sucked off by fish. It's not really something that you do every day. It's a story. An adventure. Something to write home about. But alas, the others were not quite as keen, and though Kathryn and I did keep an eye out for it on our minimal travellings, we were at a loss. We left Busan that Sunday with a day of sunshine and a night of partying under our belts and bags pull of soggy clothing on our bags.
This weekend I returned to Busan, and one of the first things that popped into my head when Zach asked me what I wanted to do was that I wanted to find Dr Fish. It turned out that Zach had also heard about this phenomenon and was equally intrigued. And so we did some research on Saturday morning (after a night of good food and slight tipsiness) and found out that there were two Dr Fish's in the area - one near the Kyungsung University subway station and the other near the Seomyeon subway station. Being closer to the Seomyeon station, we made our way there first.
"It's around the Judies Taehwa, I think on the same street as the burger king and the arcade with the lights in the sidewalk. It's on the third floor of the building, but I think they keep a sign on street level."
These were the directions that we found to the Dr Fish in Seomyeon. It sounded simple enough. Find the Burger King, and we would be set! We found the Burger King subway exit, and felt like we were really getting somewhere. We got onto the street and looked around us, expecting it to be right there. It wasn't. We walked around for a good ten minutes before actually finding the Judies Taehwa (skillfully spotted down an alley by myself) and quickly found the Burger King and arcade after that. But alas, no Dr Fish sign could be found. We looked at the third floors of the buildings all around us, looked at eye-level for a sign, walked around the block because maybe it was in a building nearby and eventually gave in to asking for directions. But alas, there was no Dr Fish in Seomyeon, at least as far as any of the people that we asked were concerned. We weren't deterred though. So the one in Seomyeon had probably closed. There was still another that we could go to.
"It's part of a new cafe replacing a Chinese fusion place, 2nd floor above NongHyup Bank, right across from Spark and Kyungsung entrance...called Dr. Fishfeet or something along those lines."
The directions to the second Dr Fish sounded far more promising, and so we headed slightly off the beaten path to Kyungsung to try again. We spotted the NongHyup on the map without too much trouble and headed towards the correct subway exit, filled with hope, our feet tingling for some fishy nibbles (well, I can't speak for Zach's feet. Only my own.) But alas once more! On arriving at the NongHyup and looking towards the second floor, we discovered that the Chinese fusion restaurant had been replaced by an Italian one. No Dr Fish for us.
With all hope gone, there was a sense of disappointment lingering in the air. No Dr Fish. No relaxing foot therapy. Sadness. But instead of wallowing in our sadness, we decided to check out the famous Jagalchi Fish Market - we were in a fishy mood after all! And so we made our way to Jagalchi and walked along streets filled with every kind of fish imaginable, and even some that aren't. My favourites were probably the orange, whiskered fish with the brilliant green and blue fins.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around Busan and visiting Chinatown and Haeyundai. While both were good fun, I think it was the fishy part of the weekend that I enjoyed the most. Here are some fishy photos so that you too can indulge in the fishiness of Busan in a small way.
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