- Gamcheon Culture Village
- Gukje Market and Jagalchi Market
- Busan Air Cruise and Songdo Yonggung Suspension Bridge
- Dongbaekseom Island & Haeundae beach
- Gwangandaegyo Bridge
- Blue Line Park
- Haedong Yonggungsa Temple
- Bombay Brau
- 콩스랑 Bean’s Cook
- Eobu
- New Little India
- Random notes
My Busan guide is an interesting person. At the end of the Busan leg, I asked him how many days should I have allocated Busan for, and without skipping a beat, he said I’d gone to all the interesting parts! Haha. I would still love to go back to Busan once again though, to slowly savour my favourite parts and the ones I felt went by too quickly!
Of the whole trip, I would say that the Busan leg would be the heaviest, mostly because it required us travelling very far on one day, climb 23 stories of stairs, and back to Seoul the following night. We started day 1 at 4.30am, taking the 7.52am to KTX.
I love Busan, but it has a LOT of climbing. When I say a lot. It’s a LOT.
Gamcheon Culture Village
Busan and the Gamcheon Culture Village are kind of synonymous.
So of course this village would be one of tour agenda items. The village was bigger than I had expected. Really big, and no photo would do it justice I think! We started from an unassuming entrance between fruit stalls. It quickly turned to a steep slope. Although we started before afternoon, the weather was quite cool, and we had a light jacket / scarf on. It was, however, pretty bright – I guess being a summer afternoon.
We walked only a bit, and went to a few must-take photo places, such as the “I (heart) Gamcheon” construct, and The Little Prince (with his fox) statue. Of course, no visit to Gamcheon would be complete without the shot of the village cascading down the slope.
One thing – the village is not wholly a tourist attraction. There are residents, and I even saw one resident hanging out her laundry! Some of them earn money through making and selling crafts, so do give your support if you visit Gamcheon.
Gukje Market and Jagalchi Market
More on Gukje | More on Jagalchi
Consolidating these two, as we did a fairly quick run through with them. I have a feeling we were running a bit behind schedule, and didn’t really do a thorough walk. All in all, maybe around 1 hour?
The two markets are around 400m apart – supposed to be of walking distance. As we were parked a ways away ie. parked near the lunch place, then walked to Gukje market, it would have meant that we needed to walk to Jalgachi market, then walk back to Gukje market then back to the parked car. My group voted to be driven to the second market ^^; (we are spoiled).
Gukje Market
If you’ve been to Singapore’s Bugis Street before, Gukje Market is exactly that, but much more spacious. Or it could be that because covid restrictions are still limiting the number of visitors to the area. There were many shops, selling a variety of things. I can’t recall much but I remember bingsu, bags and hats.
Jagalchi Market
From the sea, Jagalchi Market is supposed to look like a seagull. Inside, an assortment of seafood in tanks, not limited to just fish, line the pathways around the market. Eels, and other sea creatures I don’t see in the usual Singapore market…
I’m not sure if the market is air-conditioned, but it was definitely not as wet as I thought it would be. The air was cool, and there was not many people. Could it be because we were there past noon?
I had already watched a youtube video of with someone trying seafood at Jagalchi Market prior to the South Korea trip, so I had a sense on how it would be. Being there myself – I found that it gave off the Singapore Geylang Serai market vibes, with the seafood on ground floor and eating places above. The difference definitely was that the eatery on 2F of Jagalchi Market are fresh seafood!
I would love to go back to this market again and try the seafood.
Busan Air Cruise and Songdo Yonggung Suspension Bridge
More on Busan Air Cruise | More on Songdo Yonggung Suspension Bridge
I put them together because the Songdo Yonggung Suspension Bridge was right behind the Busan Air Cruise Sky Park building.
Busan Air Cruise is a cable car bridge spanning across the bay area of Songdo beach ie. east to west. There are two types of cabin, the normal cabin and the “crystal cabin” with a see-through floor. I took the crystal cabin round trip and did not regret it! The sea is quite pretty in the afternoon sun.
The Songdo Yonggung Suspension Bridge is just behind the Busan Air Cruise Sky Park building, down several flights of steps. It’s a meshed bridge jutting beyond the rocks over the sea. Of all the suspension bridges I’ve gone in this trip, this particular bridge tops my list of “scary”.
The view you get is definitely worth the climbing down and back up though!
Dongbaekseom Island & Haeundae beach
Named after the many camellia trees [“dongbaek”], the island, located south of Haeundae beach boasts of having once hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in 2005. While labelled an “island” the Dongbaekseom Island is now connected to the mainland through sediment build-up.
The boardroom at the Nurimaru APEC house, located on the southern tip of the island, is carefully preserved. Walking out to the side, I could see where they marked the positions of the various dignitaries for the official group photo.
A boardwalk encircles the island, bringing a spectacular sea view that visitors can enjoy while having a walk or exercise.
Even on a weekday morning, the place was already bustling with people. When we started around 9ish on a summer morning, it was far too bright. The weather was still alright though, and we had plenty of cool wind from the sea. Generally, it’s a great spot for light exercise or morning walk (in fact we saw many people doing just that).
Gwangandaegyo Bridge
More on the Gwangandaegyo Bridge
The Gwangandaegyo is a double-storey bridge connecting Haeundae-gu to Suyeong-gu. It is the longest bridge in Busan, and second longest in Korea. During the trip, I was privileged to be able to travel on the bridge twice – to and fro Haeundae. No photos though. I was just too excited to be on the bridge :p
Blue Line Park
There is actually a lot more to the Blueline Park, but unfortunately, due to time constraints, I could only experience the Sky Capsule and Cheongsapo Daritdol Skywalk. I would definitely want to go back here to properly explore the area, some day.
Sky Capsule
I wanted to go on the sky capsule no matter what because it looked so cute on the website! Each capsule comfortably sits 4 adults, and runs only between Mipo and Cheongsapo stations. As the track is above the tram, the capsules don’t go through the Dalmaji Tunnel (which is one of the attractions in the park). It does offer a 20 min relaxing ride by the sea.
Cheongsapo Daritdol Skywalk
The attraction is around 10-15 min walk away from the Cheongsapo station where the sky capsule had stopped. Walking on the bridge requires the visitors to wear some kind of foot cover. I didn’t get to ask but googling the reason why, it seemed that it was to keep the glassy parts clean and clear. I do have questions on the hygiene status of the covers though…
Haedong Yonggungsa Temple
Haedong Yonggungsa Temple is the last tourist stop for the day before we started to head back to Seoul. It is a medium-sized (by my own estimates) temple complex located by the sea. Even on a weekday afternoon, the place was thronging with people, I suspect, the local tourists.
There was a short line of food and drink stalls right outside the compound. Passing through the entrance, I saw a sign that proudly proclaims it as the most beautiful temple in Korea. Oh…The sight brings me back to Ladakh, with its architecture and stupas…
Bombay Brau
Bombay Brau is a Muslim-friendly North Indian restaurant located at Haeundae. In general, prices at Indian restaurants in Busan are on the high side. This restaurant however, has very small portions. If you’re a heavy eater, expect to spend more.
I had the lunch set which came with butter chicken, (korean?) rice and naan. My main stickler was that the naan was pretty tough to eat and the portion of the butter chicken was really small. I tried the lassi, which was a bit more sour than I expected it to be, but that could be subjective due to my taste preference. The masala chai was decent. I generally would not recommend the place, unless you want chai.
콩스랑 Bean’s Cook
Bean’s Cook is a vegan restaurant located in Suyeong. It offers fusion cuisine such as steak and cutlet, as well as the traditional Korean bibimbap, alongside the usual Korean side dishes. The portions were very filling, and I loved my steak so much that I wiped the plate clean! I thought the price was pretty good for the amount they have, and the vegan protein was probably not very cheap to source either. A definite recommendation!
Eobu
I consider the dinner at Eobu is THE highlight for this trip. Eobu offers a Muslim-friendly menu with I think four options of boiled or grilled shellfish or fish. We chose grilled shellfish.
This was a platter of various shellfish, served with side-dishes and a couple of different sauces. The portion was large, and it cost us less than 50K won for two persons, with rice (the platter didn’t come with rice) and drinks – it was great value for money. The seafood tasted fresh and yummy.
New Little India
The shop is located near Busan Station, so it is located at a really convenient location. When we went sometime after 6pm, there were no other people in the shop. Not dinner time, I suppose? I had the aloo prata, which is supposed to be prata (India fried flatbread) stuffed with potato (“aloo”). The potato is only a smidgen, but the prata was alright.
I had the lassi there and it tasted just like back home (Singapore). As mentioned, prices of Indian cuisine seem to be on the higher side in Busan (or maybe South Korea), so nothing much to comment. It is vegan and Muslim-friendly though.
Random notes
There were a few things I learned during the trip
- In most places, every sitting customer has to order a main meal and a drink. (I think our tour guide sounded a bit terrified when we wanted to sit down for light dinner before our return trip). It’s quite unfathomable in Singapore when we are used to sharing dishes. Or that during tea-time we would probably order one side dish and two coffees, for instance.
- Parking lots mean nothing. It depends on the person in charge of the parking lot, and they will direct the person to park a certain way if it means that more vehicles can park – equating to more money earned.
- Busan’s roads could be a mixture of tiles and concrete / tarmac. Some being narrow paths between buildings (dang the road must be expensive) etc. I couldn’t really tell the difference between roads and footpaths.
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