Busan Part 2: Korea's crankies

WHAT photo goes with a post about encountering Korea's best crankies?
Who knows, but I bet this bowlful of doodles picqued your interest.

We named them doodles, and imagined that perhaps they were the leftovers of the poor doggies that get slaughtered for bolshintang - dog stew. But in reality they're squirming and very much alive, and make an awful bloody mess when the ajumma guts them right there on the sidewalk while they wriggle in defiance.

Back to the issue at hand.
Korea's underbelly of crankies was revealed to us in all its glory over the past week on our travels to Busan.
I understand the curiosity factor, I can handle giggling school children screaming "helloooo" whatever chance they get. I don't mind staring if you at least try to avert your gaze when I eyeball you. But the crankies make me cranky, quite frankly.

Here's what we encountered, and yes, I realise most of them are old people so perhaps some could be forgiven for simply being senile:

1. Hitting: got smacked on the legs with a Grandpa's walking stick to get out the way, and was swiped a few times by ajummas for taking photos. Ok, nothing bruise-worthy, but still, definitely in the light smack category.
2. Told to be quiet on the train: everybody else on the train was talking, but the old codger next to me felt compelled to poke me with his elbow and motion for me to shut the hell up.
3. Mimicked: while walking past a market stall, the ajumma did her best impression of Gobbledy Gook as a way of ripping us off. This was actually mildly amusing because of course, that's what Koreans sound like to us.
4. Refused entry to a restaurant: the lady wouldn't let us in the door, and while she may have been smiling as she did it, it was pretty obvious why when the entire restaurant was filled with people and didn't look like it was closing any time soon. (Besides, we can read Korean so we're not high maintenance westerners at all, though of course we couldn't convey that fact. Throw us a bone you tough-skinned ajumma!)
5. Told to stop sitting on our rubber tube: everybody else (so that's thousands of people) at the beach sat on their rubber tube outside of the water, but we were told "Not cheap!" and promptly motioned to get off. Rude bastards.

Well that's a wrap.
The worst of it is now I'm almost too scared to take photos. The ajummas have ruined me.
Also, it kind of overshadows the funny things that do happen, like when an old market lady looked me up and down, told me I was beautiful and then gave me a nice, firm slap on the arse.

Oh welly. That's life in Korea, I guess. Full of strange little happenings and moments of "What the.."?

Next time, in Busan Part 3: inside Korea's biggest fish market, though not too many photos because I was feeling a bit intimidated and not at all in the mood for a wallop across the calves. (See above).