19th June 2014.
Busan!
Haeundae Market, Haeundae Beach.
Paused blogging about my 2014 Korea trip for some time and I think it's time I continued writing about our trip. Details are really hazy by now! As to exactly what time we woke up and stuff like that, I can't recall them anymore, much to my disappointment. Despite that, most of the details are still fresh in my mind as though the trip was happened recently.
Also, this Korea trip post would be the first one since I've changed my blog URL. Previously it was almostkoreanme and therefore you would also notice the change in the watermark for the photos. Do not fret, it will not affect the content or anything else. The old posts are still around too, just with a different URL.
Moving on! On day 8 on our trip in Korea, we left Seoul for a day trip to
Busan!! It was also Vaneh and LT's last day in Korea.
I don't remember how early we woke up but it was early. Since the train from Seoul to Busan would take about 2.5 hours, we didn't want to waste any time. Many of you would probably be thinking why didn't we just spend a few days in Busan? I'll go into details at the end of the post ^^
So anyway, regarding the KTX tickets, the original pricing would be quite costly so we did some calculations and decided on getting the
student day pass. It was a more tedious process but it would allow us unlimited amounts of tickets purchase within the day! Since we were travelling once in the morning (Seoul to Busan) and once more at night (Busan to Seoul), it was something like a two for the price of one ticket.
I would really recommend you to do some research on
all the possible ticket prices before going on the trip. I think it would really help you to save some money. Just an extra note:
Korea has a lot of different discount coupons available for tourist so do take some time to check out all of them before your trip.
Moving back to the KTX! It was a pretty interesting experience. The only train that we take often in Singapore is the MRT and that's just like a subway. So it's a new experience taking a long distance train and it travels within the same country!
The exterior of the KTX train!
The car number and seat number will be printed out on your ticket so not to worry. Besides the cars are connected so even if you do board the wrong car, you can search for the correct car on board. I didn't see the train conductors around much but I think they should be around to assist you if you're unable to find the car and seat.
The interior of the KTX train! It reminds me of a bus. It's quite similar to that.
The seats were pretty comfortable. That's important especially if you're travelling for a few hours. I usually fall asleep quite quickly on moving vehicles so it wasn't a surprise that I slept through most of the journey.
If you looked closely in the photo, you would've noticed that the seats are facing different directions. I think they do allow passengers to specify which direction they want to face. It's especially important to those passengers with motion sickness >.<
Do note that they don't serve food on the KTX. You can bring your own food or buy from them. However, I would think the food they're selling would cost more than food from a convenience store.
Also, the announcements in the KTX are in both Korean and English so it shouldn't be a problem for tourists. They will play the announcement before arriving at each stop so it'll give you time to prepare as the train only stops for a few minutes at each stop.
After resting in the train (and freaking out about the news that Baekhyun and Taeyeon were dating), we finally arrived in Busan!
We walked out of the KTX station and headed to the Busan subway station that wasn't too far away. We were able to use our transport card from Seoul so it was convenient. It took us around 40 minutes to arrive at Haeundae station. There were maps upon leaving the subway station so it wasn't too difficult making our way around.
We found the Haeundae market quickly! And it looked like those markets we often see in Korean dramas and variety programs. Since Busan was near the sea, it was seafood galore! The fish were all laid down and arranged nicely on the table.
For a market, you would notice that it's pretty clean and not like the local wet markets. Maybe because it's located outdoors so there's more ventilation. Also, there isn't any pungent fish smell too!
Surprisingly for a tourist location, there wasn't any crowd. There weren't many people around in fact. Maybe we went during a non-peak period. Or everyone was enjoying their summer holidays elsewhere. It wasn't too difficult to get around the area since it was pretty much one straight route.
Looking for food places wouldn't be difficult as well. The restaurants would slowly increase as you continue walking. There were restaurants side by side and with a similar menu even! So it was pretty competitive. The ahjummas would stand outside their shop asking in various languages if you wanted to come in to eat. We checked out the menus to a few restaurants before we went inside.
We were looking for a 회 (raw fish) restaurant but sadly, it didn't seem like they served that. So instead we settled for
eel.
Apparently eel is popular in Busan. Since it's really fresh. The literally like kill the eel only when you've placed your order.
This photo was taken by my sister. I was quite grossed out by the process so I stayed inside the restaurant watching our bags. My sister even took a video of the process! The eel was squirming around on the cutting board as the ahjumma was cutting it up...
Moving on to the less grosser part...
Always generous with their side dishes (ban chan)!
The ahjummas set up the table nicely and they helped us with cooking the eel. So basically, the eel was still wriggling when they placed it on the foil over the stove. Seemed like I was the only one bothered by the wriggling eel. My sister and friends went ahead and ate it after it was cooked but I couldn't bring myself to just pick a piece up and eat it.
The finished product! The one on of the left side was eel cooked with the red pepper sauce and the one on the right was just seasoned with pepper and salt.
I preferred the one with the sauce as it masked the fishy taste of the eel. I'm not really a fan of seafood so I wouldn't really enjoy a dish like that. However, some of you might actually enjoy this, like my friends did. They said it tasted like chicken! It's actually a good experience trying something new like this. I'm glad I tried it although I didn't enjoy it.
After lunch, we headed to the beach! It wasn't too far from our lunch area and we didn't have difficulty finding the beach. I can't remember the exact route we took but it shouldn't be that difficult since we managed to find it rather easily.
Comparing it to local beaches, I would say the Haeundae Beach is quite large. It's a straight stretch so it does look quite nice from wherever you're standing.
A panorama shot from where we stood at the 'entrance' to the beach. Of course, what do tourists do at tourist destinations? Take photos of course!
Since Vaneh brought her selfie stick, we were fooling around with it.
She had the bluetooth remote so we just snapped away.
I spy my sister and LT in the distance! There were little umbrellas set up around the beach which I thought was kind of cute especially if you're a beach goer, it's so convenient!
Here's Vaneh taking a selfie! Hehe. Thought I'd feature everyone in this post!
You would have noticed that we're all wearing long sleeves in these photos. The sea breeze was surprisingly cold. Once we got to the beach, we took out our cardigans and looked like obvious tourists being the only ones on the beach wrapped up. Everyone else wore swimsuits or tees and shorts. We really did find it cold though. Haha.
We continued walking around the area, nothing much to see but we just enjoyed the cool air and scenery. I think we left the area around 5ish in the evening and took the subway back to the train station.
We arrived at Busan station rather early, way before our train back to Seoul. Since we've purchased the
student day pass, we went to the counter to ask if we could change our tickets. We managed to get on an earlier train. Of course, we slept throughout the train ride back too. We arrived back in Seoul past dinner and
I can't remember what we had for dinner. We must have been too hungry because
none of us took photos of what we ate. Haha.
As mentioned earlier on in the post, there were many reasons as to why we decided to just go to Busan for a day. We were discussing before the trip and decided that it would cost too much to stay in Busan for a few days. And if we decided to go to Busan for a few nights, it would also mean that we would need to consider additional costs for the lodging there. The guest house in Seoul had a discount promotion if you stayed there for 14 days straight. Also, if we decided on a day trip, we could get the
student day pass which would be way cheaper as well.
Hope you enjoyed the lengthy read of what we did on our 8th day in Korea! I'll probably try to finish blogging about this trip before I go on my 2016 Korea Trip! Yes! I'm planning to visit Korea again in 2016. Haven't decided where to go but most likely Seoul to see the Cherry Blossoms and maybe outside of Seoul for a Hanok stay. Planning to do more sightseeing than before.
So till then, do check out my previous posts from my Korea Trip 2014 and stay tuned for posts on day 9 to 14!
