Back in May, Sean and I decided to take a spontaneous weekend trip to Busan. Busan is a city located on the southeastern part of the Korean peninsula. It’s been popularly known for the zombie film Train to Busan, which I still have not seen. We were going to take the train, but we like traveling with our car since it gives us a little more freedom with where we want to visit. It’s about a 5-6 hour drive from Seoul, which isn’t bad considering the traffic getting out of Seoul.
We stayed at Lotte hotel, which wasn’t bad because it was near so much stuff in the city already. Outside of the hotel was two streets lined with street food carts. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to try any because by the time we went out, everything was so busy. We ended up eating Korean BBQ at a place near the hotel, and it was still so delicious.
Honestly, it’s pretty hard to remember what we actually did in Busan since it’s been so long. Our first stop was Taejongdae Cliffs. We didn’t spend too much time there because it was extremely hot, and I was no in the attire to climb any type of cliff. We took a walk along the pier, and then moved on with our tour of the city. Most of our morning we spent baking at Haeundae Beach. It was a little strange for us at first because everyone that was there was covered head to toe. We were a little hesitant to strip down to our bathing suits because we would be the only ones, but we did it anyways. Asians are quite the opposite of Americans when it comes to tanning. They admire porcelain white skin because it shows that you’ve got enough money not to work in the field all day (where you would get dark). We’re obviously very Americanized Asians, haha.
After trying to withstand the Korean heat, we packed up our things and went to Gamcheon Culture Village. It’s a colorful village that sits on top of a hill where everyone goes to see the colorful houses of Busan that overlook the sea. It was relatively crowded at the time that we went, but not so much where you were constantly bumping into people. There are a few hidden alleyways that you can go up to get better views from the rooftops of the houses. Then for dinner, we decided to check out their massive fish market! We had absolutely no idea what we were looking for, so we chose a few fish and a live octopus and had it cooked for us. It took me a VERY long time to eat the octopus because it was still squirming on the plate! The crowd around us at the fish market was fun to watch. They ate everything. They ordered so much food, and they had A LOT of soju going around. It’s funny because it’s always groups of old people that go hiking, and then by mid-afternoon, they’re all drunk.
We were extremely lucky that it didn’t rain on us during the one full day we had there. Driving there and driving back to Seoul, we were traveling in downpour rain. It definitely is a trip worth making if you have a free weekend in Korea and want to escape the hustle and bustle of Seoul!