Busan, a port city that lives by its fish market

Busan is South Korea's second city and its biggest port, spread along the south-east coast between steep green hills and the sea. It is a city of container cranes and bridges, beaches and fish. Seoul is the capital of government and money. Busan has always lived by the water, and it has the brisker, plainer manner of a port.

The city's character was shaped above all by the Korean War. In 1950, when North Korean forces overran most of the peninsula, Busan was one of the few places that held. It became the temporary capital, and hundreds of thousands of refugees poured in. They built shacks up the hillsides and made a living however they could, and many stayed. A good deal of what Busan eats, and how it looks, goes back to those years.

Jagalchi, by the harbour

Jagalchi Market, on the waterfront in the old centre, is the largest seafood market in the country, and it is the place to start. The ground floor is a vast hall of tanks and trays: live fish, octopus, crabs, prawns, sea squirts, eels, shellfish of every kind, some still moving. Outside, along the harbour, stalls spill into the street. The traders are famously women, the Jagalchi ajumma, and the tradition goes back to the war years, when many women ran stalls to support their families.

The system is simple and very enjoyable. You choose your fish or shellfish from a stall downstairs, pay for it, and it is taken upstairs to one of the restaurants above the market, where it is prepared and served for a charge on top. That might be raw, as hoe, sliced fish eaten with lettuce leaves, garlic and chilli paste, or grilled, or in a spicy stew. It is noisy, wet underfoot and slightly chaotic, and it is the best meal in Busan.

The rest of the Busan table

Busan has its own dishes, several of them born in the war. Dwaeji gukbap is a milky pork-bone soup with rice, eaten with chives and salted shrimp. It is cheap, filling and found all over the city. Milmyeon are cold wheat noodles, made by refugees from the North who could not get the buckwheat for their own cold noodles and used the flour from American food aid instead. Busan is also known for eomuk, fish cakes, sold on skewers in broth from street carts and in fancy shops alike.

Busan also holds the only United Nations memorial cemetery in the world, where soldiers from many of the countries that fought for the United Nations in the Korean War are buried, among them a large number from Britain. It is a quiet, well-kept place of lawns and low headstones, and it puts the city's wartime story into perspective.

Beyond the market

Many of the hillside refugee settlements have been rebuilt. One, Gamcheon, has become famous as Gamcheon Culture Village, a steep terraced neighbourhood of small houses painted in bright colours, with murals and art installations along its alleys. It is still a residential area, so it asks for quiet.

On the other side of the city, Haeundae is the best-known beach in Korea, a long crescent of sand backed by towers. Dongbaek Island, a wooded headland at one end, has a coastal walk and the APEC House, built for a summit of Pacific leaders in 2005. Haedong Yonggungsa, further along the coast, is a Buddhist temple built on rocks above the sea, unusually for a Korean temple, which would normally be in the mountains.

G Adventures' Journeys: Soul of South Korea, eight nights, includes Jagalchi, Gamcheon, Haeundae, Dongbaek Island and the APEC House, and Haedong Yonggungsa. It combines Busan with Seoul, Gyeongju and Yangdong, and the island of Jeju.

G Adventures' Best of South Korea, seven nights, includes Haeundae, Dongbaek Island and Haedong Yonggungsa in Busan, as well as Seoul and Gyeongju. Explore Worldwide's Discover South Korea, eleven nights, also includes Busan on its longer route.

The best way to see Busan is with an appetite. Spend the morning at Jagalchi, the afternoon walking a coastal path, and the evening with a bowl of pork soup and a bottle of soju, watching the lights come on across the harbour.