Busan
— — a port city stacked up the hills.
Not only on a wall.
“South Korea's second city, a deep-water port set against steep coastal hills. Container cranes work the harbour by day; by night the long bridge across Gwangalli Bay lights up over the surf. Gamcheon's painted houses climb the slope in tiers above the old town. The fish market at Jagalchi has been there since the 1920s. Octobers belong to the film festival. — from the studio
Busan, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Busan lies on the southeast coast of the Korean Peninsula, facing the Korea Strait toward Tsushima and Japan. With about 3.3 million residents inside the metropolitan boundary, it is South Korea's second-largest city after Seoul and the country's principal port — the seventh-busiest container terminal in the world by throughput. The city wraps around a series of bays and ridges; the Nakdong River reaches the sea in a broad delta on its western edge. The annual Busan International Film Festival, founded in 1996, anchors the cultural calendar.
Busan's coastline runs about thirty kilometres along the Korea Strait, with seven public beaches and three working harbours. Haeundae Beach holds a kilometre and a half of sand backed by towers and the new Haeundae Blueline coastal walk. Gwangalli looks east at the 7.4-kilometre Gwangan Bridge, lit nightly. Jagalchi Fish Market, rebuilt in 2006 on the old port site, sells the morning catch from stalls run largely by women known locally as Jagalchi Ajumma. The container terminals at Gamman and Sinseondae handle most of South Korea's seaborne trade.
Gamcheon Culture Village, a tiered hillside neighbourhood of painted houses west of the centre, became a public art project in 2009 and now draws over two million visitors a year. Beomeosa, a Zen temple founded in 678 on the slopes of Mount Geumjeong, sits at the north end of Subway Line 1. The Busan International Film Festival runs ten days each October at the Busan Cinema Center. Haeundae and Gwangalli are reachable by Metro; the KTX from Seoul Station arrives at Busan Station in about two and a half hours.