Busan is a picturesque island located off the shore of South Korea, a 2.5(ish) hour train ride from Seoul.
I wanted this to be a really relaxing trip so I really had no fixed schedule. I did find that the Busan Metro Trip, Busan Tour Guide that I picked up from a subway station was the most useful guidebook I got, even though I had the one from Rough Guides. It showed you the attractions of the area of each subway stop.
Things to note:
- Google Maps is very unreliable in Korea so I did my exploring old school, with a paper map 😛
- Google Maps made me believe there would be no transfers from the airport to my AirBnb, boy was I wrong
- November in Busan is still quite warm, you’ll just need a thin trench coat in the evenings
- Learn your basic Korean! It’s much easier to communicate with locals as we didn’t encounter many English speakers in Busan
- You can get a tax refund at the airport when you spend 30k won or more
Day 1
Having taken a red-eye from Hong Kong, I napped for half of the first day – I told you it was going to be a relaxing trip! I seemed to have selected a haunted AirBnB, but that’s for another blog post. That night, we went out and dinner consisted all of street food from food stalls all around BIFF Square. And since we had some extra time, we went up the Busan Tower. It only cost us $8 CAD to go up but you get what you pay for. The view was nice but the windows were a bit dirty (lol) and it was a relatively small space. HOWEVER, to our wonderful surprise, when we were leaving, we walked through a small exhibition hall with a projection wall and trick art.
Day 2
I loved this day! We went to Gamcheon Culture Village and it was full of things to do, buy, eat and see. The area is known for its steep streets (remember to take the bus instead of walking up!), beautiful murals and brightly painted houses, an area that was restored recently to attract tourism. I thought we wouldn’t take more than 2 hours here, but the full walking tour took us 6 hours. The prices here were very reasonable as well for souvenirs and food. This night we wanted to try some local restaurants so we went to one by Nampo-dong. Because we didn’t speak Korean, the ajumma tried to skimp out on the delicious Korean side dishes!
Day 3
This trip was so relaxing that I didn’t bother to map out the attractions. We ended up visiting Songdo Marine Cable Car Busan AirCruise in the morning at one end of the city and took the bus to the Taejongdae Resort Park, at the other end. We made for good time though! We first hiked the Songdo Cloud Trail along the coastline to get to the other side to take the AirCruise. On our way back, we took the Crystal Cabin that offered a glass bottom view of Songdo Beach. And then we took a 30 minute bus ride to the southernmost end of the Yeongo Coast. Taejongdae offered a magnificent coast view. They said on clear days, you can see Tsushima Island of Japan.
Day 4
It was a bit of a wasted day but we didn’t want to go too far from the AirBnb so we decided to have a relaxing breakfast, do some last minute shopping and have an authentic lunch before heading to the airport. The quality of clothes in Korea is excellent, especially for the price…so of course, I got a couple of things 🙂
In 4 days we only explored the Busan Metro area – there’s still so much to do! I can’t wait to go back again!
Okay, I better post now. In September I promised myself I’ll do one blog post a month and I’m 30 minutes away from 12AM on December 1st!
xO.
Life Outside the Inbox 