June 12. Masan.

Yesterday we went to Klay's birthplace, Masan. Masan is a fishing/port town of what looks to be a couple hundred thousand, about 40 miles west of Busan. We had to hire a car for the day to get there; the train doesn't make it down the coast and the buses were real milk-runs. But the car was cheap and the driver was really nice.

So this is a picture of the highlight of that city -- the fish market. Any picture of this world inside a world would not do it justice; you will need to see the video and the SLR pictures. Thousands of littel boothes crammed into a market with unimaginable foods and.....smells. sorry I can't take that home and give you a wiff. just imagine how these live octopus smell. That should do it.

Oh, and we finally figured out why Koreans never wear their shoes indoors. You can only imagine what was stuck to the bottom of our shoes after we goth through this place.

The town itself was a working man's town. Gritty and a little dirty. The docks were busy, and the shops were packed. Lots of trucks taking things out of the port to other parts of the county. And the people -- as nice as ever.

Now, we did go to Masan to let Klay get a feel for the town in which he was born. Since it was fish, and there was no soccer readily apparent, he said that it wasn't his first choice. But he didn't let go of his mom's hand very much this day, either....