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Published: July 19th 2013
How We All Feel
Cool picture on the hostel wall in Haeundae. 12th Jul: We met up after work near Suwon station to go for a curry. The curry was delicious as usual. We headed over to the station and got our tickets and waited for our train. The train arrived pretty much on time and we hopped on. The train was pretty new and clean for a mugunghwa (cheap,slow train). We swivelled the chairs around so we could chat, however this seriously eats up on leg room. Then it was snooze time.
13th Jul: We arrived at Busan station not long after 4 am. We got a taxi and headed to Vesta spa in Haeundae. Vesta is a jjimjilbang (sauna and sleeping place), but because it is the most well known in the area, it was full. We walked back down the hill and found a taxi and he took us to a random jjimjilbang. This is our new secret jjimjilbang in Busan. It was really nice, clean, and fairly quiet. Score for us! After a quick shower it was time for bed.
I slept pretty well, no doubt all due to my Hello Kitty sleeping mask. We got up around 11:30 and headed back to the sauna to get
dressed and grab our stuff. We emerged form the jjimjilbang and the subway was right in front of us. Perfect location. We were two stops away from Haeundae, so we hopped on the subway and emerged in Haeundae. We had decided we would head straight to the hostel, even though it was too early to check in and just try to dump our stuff. We found the hostel pretty easily, although they didn't say that the road curves in one direction and to follow it. The guy on reception told us that our room was ready. Score! So we were able to dump all our stuff in there. The room was really nice and we had our own en suite.
By this point in time we were all starving, so we headed out to get lunch. We decided just to go to the Fuzzy Navel as it was close by and we knew we could get decent grub there. I had a delicious shrimp burrito with a side of guacamole, god how much I miss avocados. It was washed down with an iced americano. Bloody lovely!
Happily fed and watered we headed down to the beach. I've been
to Busan a few times before, but always in the winter or spring. I've wanted to come in the summer for a while to see how insane Haeundae Beach is. Literally the world and his wife descend on Haeundae for July and August and the beach is a sea of parasols. On the beach we hired a couple of parasols. Strangely it was cheaper to pay for them on card (5,500 won) instead of cash (7,000 won). We got set up and then us girls headed to the sea. The sea was freezing! We dipped our feet in, but couldn't face putting our whole bodies in. It was also a bit murky where we were standing. So we took a walk along the beach. We found a spot further along that was clearer and slightly warmer so we had a bit of a splash about there. Back on our beach mat I decided to have a snooze and the others headed off for a walk along the beach in the opposite direction.
We left the beach not long after six, as that was when we had to give the parasol and beach mat back. We had a mooch around
the shops for a bit. There are a couple of great second hand shops, however one was closed so we never got to have a look inside. Back at the hostel we showered, changed, and painted our nails with the new nail varnish we had bought.
We had a bit of a walk around Haeundae, and then hopped in a taxi to head over to Gwangalli Beach for dinner. It seems like every hour is rush hour in Korea, as the roads were heaving. It took ages to get there because of all the traffic. The taxi dropped us off and it was a quick walk down to the beach. I love Busan, it's got a real relaxed holiday vibe about it, it feels like you're not in Korea anymore. Love it! This was the first time I had been to Gwangalli beach. There are beautiful views of the Diamond Bridge, and the area was busy with people walking along the front, chilling on the beach and setting off fireworks on the beach. The set up here is a bit better than Haeundae, as there is the beach, then a small road, part of which was pedestrianised, with a
small night market going on and people performing dances and singing, and then lots of restaurants and bars with outdoor patios facing the beach.
We wandered along the road, checking out a few restaurants, before finally settling on Guess Who? as it still had tables available outside. It was a bit pricey, but the menu was massive, so much choice. We had some coconut shrimps to start with as we were all starving. Then we ordered our mains. We got steaks and burgers. The steaks came with soup and salad. The mushroom soup was nice, and the salad was good, too. The steak was delicious, although the cream (sweet) on the baked potato with bacon was a bit strange. poor Chuck the waitress forgot about his burger, so he didn't get it until we had finished our steaks. The burger was massive and looked amazing. We were pretty sure the pattie was homemade.
After dinner we headed down to the beach and took about a million photos of Diamond Bridge. We decided that we would try and walk back to Haeundae, by following the coastline. We walked along the path by the beach and then turned round the
corner. There were loads of people sitting relaxing on the beach and at the side there were benches, where people were drinking and having picnics. We kept walking, there was a small port with lots of small fishing boats in it, and lots of cages for fishing. Around the next corner, we got a lovely surprise. The area looked brand-new like the coastline had just been redeveloped. There were steps down to the sea, and at the top of the steps there was a paved section for people to sit on. The whole place was heaving. There was a real mix of people, families, couples. group of friends, both young and old. It was lovely to see them all sitting there eating, drinking, chillaxing, and enjoying life. We walked past the mouth of the river and followed the river in land for a little bit. There is a nice boardwalk to walk along.
Then four became two, as Chuck and Malia called it a night and headed home in a taxi. However Mel and I persevered, we almost got lost at this point but a nice signpost told us which way to go to get back to Haeundae. We
had to double back on ourselves a little and then climb some steps up to the bridge, and then walk over the bridge. When we were at the top of the bridge the signpost said it was 5 km to Haeundae, but we were committed, we were gonna walk all the back. The next part if the walk was a bit boring as the area was fairly residential and there was nothing much to see apart from apartment blocks and the yacht club. Then it was the fancy schmancy redevelopment zone, with the I Park apartments that were built to look like sails and the Park Hyatt hotel. If only I could be rich enough to live in this area. It was fairly busy with other people walking about, and people sat up on the ocean wall, you wouldn't think it was after two in the morning. We had contemplated walking through the coastal park but by this point we were pretty knackered and we didn't know how well lit the park would be, so we decided to skip it. Before we knew it we were at the edge of the main strip in Haeundae. By this time it was
almost three a.m. but the whole place was still crawling with people. We headed back to the hostel and went to bed, completely knackered.
14th Jul: Woke up sometime after nine, but I didn't move from my bed until after ten. I had a great night's sleep, I just wish it could of been longer, but we had to check out of the hostel at 11. We were slightly late in checking out, oops, but it was only about 10 or 15 minutes. We had decided to head back over to Gwangnalli beach and see what it was like in the day time. We hefted all of our belongings on the subway after checking that there would be lockers in Gwangnalli (Gwangan) subway station. It was only about 6 stops away on the subway, not too far, but I was still impressed we had walked it the night before.
After finding the lockers and dumping our stuff, we headed down to the beach. The walk took about 15 minutes and on the way we discussed where we would have brunch. We went to an all day brunch place, that we had seen last night, called (I think) Brunsweek.
It was certainly popular with the expat crowd. We sat outside on the patio. I ordered salmon eggs benedict. I had't had it for ages and it was delicious. We all agreed the food was great and it was reasonably priced, too.
We headed down to the beach and after hiring an umbrella, we spent the afternoon there. The water was freezing, so no swimming happened although the others were braver than me and ventured further in. Also it was a bit overcast compared to yesterday, which I actually enjoyed as it meant the sun didn't feel so intense. Gwangalli beach was quieter than Haeundae, which was nice, but the sand isn't as good. It has a lot more small stones and pebbles in it. We had a lovely time chilling on the beach.
We left the beach, not long after four. We stopped at a fried chicken place to get some chicken to eat on the train home. The chicken took a while to cook and we were worried that we were going to miss our train, because we were running late and we still had to pick up the tickets at the station. However after sprinting
through Seomyeon subway station where we had to transfer and making the next train in perfect timing, we arrived at Busan station, got our tickets and made it on to the train with 11 minutes to spare! In complete contrast to our journey down to Busan, when we took the cheap slow train, we were heading back to Seoul and Suwon in style, on the KTX and in first class! Of course, it wasn't because these were the only tickets available. First class was nice, but nothing to write home about. There was a vending machine dispensing free bottles of water (although they were tiny) and I got some complimentary headphones, which was good as I had broke the ones for my phone. We made it back to Suwon in less than three hours and were greeted by lashing rain. We had been so lucky with the weather in Busan.
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