Haeundae Traditional Market

This guide to Haeundae Traditional Market in Busan centers on masugeori, the old Korean belief that a stallholder's very first sale of the day, before eight in the morning, decides whether the next twelve hours go well or badly. It traces the market back to around 1910, when peddlers and fish-sellers first set up along this lane behind the beach, long before it became an officially recognized market in 2005. Linger near the hotteok line or the racks of dried squid and watch how differently vendors treat the first customer of the morning.