Bosu-dong Book Street

Why it matters: this alley of secondhand bookshops was started by North Korean refugees selling magazines off cardboard boxes when Busan was the wartime capital, and it kept a generation of students in books when nobody else could. Around 70 stores packed the lanes by the 1970s; the survivors are still family-run, still stacked floor to ceiling. Browse for old Korean paperbacks, vintage comics and English secondhand finds – haggling is normal and cash is welcome even though cards work. Come during the day, since shops shutter around 20:00, and take the steep staircase mid-alley up toward the mural village for the photo everyone comes for.