Days 8 and 9: Loving Busan

This is a long one, sorry in advance! We flew to Busan (on a $17 flight!) first thing Tuesday morning. From the moment we stepped off the airport bus to Haeundae Beach, the area our hotel was in, we loved it. If Seoul is the Manhattan of Korea, Busan is the L.A. The vibe and style are much more laid back, there are a ton of resort-style hotels, and the streets were decked out with lights for New Years celebrations.

We got a great deal on a really nice hotel since it's off-season, which was a very welcome relief after 2 nights in a shared-room guesthouse. We didn't have very much time in Busan, but packed our days there with as much activities as possible to get the most out of our time there.

First stop was Spa Land, a high-end take on the traditional Korean bathhouse, or jjimjilbang. It was quite the experience - when we walked in we were given gym-clothes like shirts and long shorts that we had to change in to. We then spent about an hour wandering through the different spa rooms - all with different themes and set at different temperatures. There was a charcoal sauna, pyramid room, and Roman bath. The room below was the salt room, with walls made out of Himalayan salt. Inside the room, everyone just laid down on the ground and sweat out their toxins.

Then there was the baths... There were 7 or 8 pools with different minerals and set to different temperatures. It was incredibly relaxing, but the biggest culture shock was that full nudity was expected. A little awkward at first, but we did leave Spa Land feeling completely refreshed.

After dinner we walked around Eel Street. There were tons of stalls selling everything from fish to octopus, to of course eels. We even saw some eels being butchered on the street.

Most stalls had a restaurant connected where you could eat the fish on the spot. We decided to forgo the slaughter and ate at a dumpling place. We did get soup with lots of seafood though - shrimp, mussels, and octopus.

We walked to Haeundae Beach the next morning before heading downtown to catch a hop-on hop-off city bus tour.

The tour took all day but we saw a lot  of Busan. First up was a view of the beach.

Then we stopped at Taejondae Park. We didn't know what to expect but it had everything. I grabbed some fishcakes at the gift shop, then we caught a little trolley for the few mile loop around the park.

The highlights were cliffs overlooking the ocean, and a lighthouse.

There was also a cool market on some of the cliffs. The women were cleaning the seafood at the tents, and you could eat it right there on blankets overlooking the ocean.

We also stopped at an in-use Buddhist temple.

Back on the bus, we stopped at BIFF Square, the site of Busan's International Food Festival. There wasn't much there other than stores, but we did grab some street food. I got an onion and potato pancake filled with pine nuts, peanuts, and chocolate. Yum?

Then we stopped at Jalgachi Fish market, apparently the larger seafood market in the world.

There was even more fish here, that you could buy and eat upstairs.

The craziest thing was a huge shark for sale.

We also saw a poor tilapia meet it's bloody end.

Dinner was an overpriced chicken dish at Korea's only Chinatown.

 

We woke up early the next morning to get the high speed KTX train back to Seoul to spend New Years Eve with Ryan. There were still people out drinking from the night before when we walked to the station at 7am. The train ride is pretty cool - we've been in cities our whole time here and are actually getting to see a little bit of the countryside.