6 April 2026
Fish blossoms
Gyeonghwa station and Masan fish market
Today I completed a full loop of Changwon, joining the 3 parts via bus. This took in Changwon proper where I am staying, as well as the blossom festival of all blossom festivals at Gyeonghwa station in Jinhae and then finally the fish market and art village in Masan. Those are all basically random words, but the important bit is that I have now seen all of Changwon (from ground level), tomorrow I will look down upon it again from a medium height.
First up was the most popular cherry blossom festival in all of Korea (allegedly), complete with crowd control, just like the one in Seoul. This one was better because it is on an abandoned train track, complete with a train that houses the history of how it became a cherry blossom festival location. On a Monday morning, there was almost no one there.
About 40 minutes away by a convenient bus is Masan. This has a very large fish market. Fish is just part of the market, it is an everything market, but since it is right by the ocean, they call it a fish market. Most of what Korea calls fish is not actual fish, but more like crustacean innards combined and mashed into a slurry inside a bag.
Very nearby in Masan is what is advertised as art streets. It was a bit hard to tell as this area was mostly closed on Mondays, but there do seem to be a lot of galleries around.
Then finally, I could have taken a bus in either direction to get back to my hotel, but I had to complete the loop! So I let 2 buses that would have been quicker in the other direction go past just so I could complete my anti-clockwise journey around all of Changwon.
Brace for blossoms. There are hundreds of street food and trinket stalls nearby, all closed.
The blossoms however, do not close on Monday, they are now starting to rain down slightly. There are still signs warning you to not walk on the tracks which is rather confusing.
Because you are also encouraged to stand in the middle of the tracks and take photos.
The blossom tunnel is about 800m long. It is indeed quite impressive as far as blossom hysteria goes.
Almost no one around.
I love a train themed toilet.
Not a toilet.
Inside the train is a museum of sorts, detailing how a once in use train line became Korea's premier blossom destination.
There is also a library where you can read about blossoms, and how Korea invented them and Japan stole them (probably).
I got down low, as most others taking photos seemed to do it this way.
I may have over blossomed, I blame the addition of the train.
I was not joking about crowd control.
Next was the famed fish market at Masan, proudly displaying the Chinese character for fish. They know their market.
This market has not been fully gentrified yet.
Petrol powered scooters still ride around coating the food in 2-stroke residue.
Some areas are wetter than others.
That is probably enough fish market pics.
Time to head down to the docks. Note there are fake light houses on either side of this photo to climb up (I did).
View from fake lighthouse, fishing boats and giant bridge in the distance.
Changwon proper is on the other side of those hills, I will climb those hills tomorrow.
Final stop of the day, the art themed shopping streets of Masan. So arty.
I saw 2 shop cats, one was behind glass, this one came out to greet me, photo slightly out of focus. We had a small fight but eventually agreed upon a truce. Despite appearances in this poor photo, he does actually have 2 eyes.
Probably the main pedestrian outdoor street in the art area.
There is a rope hanging off this bell, wisely not long enough for me to ring it.
Sang Sang Gil - which is the street most often shown on reviews of this area.
To get back to the fish market area from where I would get a bus, I travelled through a long covered clothes market. Lots of military themed clothes as always.
Typical Korean street scene from out the front of any traditional market, ideally I would have got closer to the steam from the dumpling shop (mandoo / mandu), but then I would have missed the vegetables laying in the street.
Last photo for the day, scenes from a moving bus. They really like planting a lot of flowers at intersections here.