The previous country on our world trip was Japan. We visited mystical temples, ate in strange restaurants, slept in Love Hotels and ate the best sushi in the world. After wandering and backpacking through Oceania and Asia, the eighth country of our world trip is: South Korea. Previously you could read how we visited the world wonder Jeju. In this blog I take you to Busan, the most colorful city in South Korea.
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The start of our backpacking trip through South Korea: Busan
After a wonderful introduction to the island of Jeju, it is time to visit the mainland. We do this in Busan, the second largest city in the country. The city has a large harbor, an impressive skyline, a world-famous fish market and a few beautiful beaches. We stay in the middle of the cultural center, called Jung-Gu. We don’t know much about the city yet, but we meet an enthusiastic New Zealander on the metro who appears to be in love with the city. He advises us to take a very special walk. The walk is called the one between the city’s two most popular beaches across an abandoned train track. Since the train company went bankrupt, the trains have made way for walkers. The route also runs over the cliffs past impressive views. We immediately decide to take the metro to this special experience.
Haeundae Beach, the starting point of the walk, is not a bad idea. With a few gigantic skyscrapers in the background, we plop down on the golden sand of the beach. We notice that unlike the Chinese and Japanese, the Koreans are not so shy of the sun. No winter outfits, umbrella parades and liters of Sunblock Factor to hide from the lightest ray of sunshine. No, Koreans actually dive into the water without a turtleneck and ski pants. I never thought that exactly THAT would look weird.
Korea’s most special temple is beautifully situated by the sea!
Then it’s time to find the trail for that special walk. We walk on the train tracks and we check a few times to see if a train is secretly arriving. You might accidentally take the wrong train tracks and get the high-speed line to Seoul tattooed on your back. If after a few hundred meters that chance seems to be virtually nil, we continue happily and even lie down on the rails in the sun. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more relaxing than a nap on the train tracks. Somehow it made us completely zen. Highly recommended! But don’t immediately try it out on the Rotterdam-The Hague intercity track. On a Sunday afternoon on the Coevorden-Hoogeveen route it should be possible.
At the other end of the walk we find a famous temple of South Korea called Haedong Yonggungsa. This is the only temple located by the sea and that makes for a lot of beautiful photos! We walk over the rocks through the colorful complex. We hear a large group of people laughing and screaming around a bridge. From there they try to aim coins into different bowls of a fountain. It turns out to be quite a sport. Like a kid at the fair, I naturally threw a large portion of our daily budget off this bridge. It did it only to find out that there was no life-size teddy bear for the winner. Maybe sometime in my life the prize will be presented by Buddha in the form of very good karma, I believe in that.
It looks like a Brazilian favela: the Gamcheon district!
With a new day and a lighter wallet we visit another special part of the city of Busan. We visit the Gamcheon district. In the last century, war refugees were sheltered here in a gray meaningless mass of concrete. Nowadays the deprived neighborhood looks very different. From 2000 onwards it was realized that much more was possible with the beautiful location in the mountains and a major art project was started here. The houses were painted in all the colors of the rainbow. And that provides amazing views from the mountains. It seems like we have ended up in Rio de Janeiro! We take a walk that would surprise even Alice, from Wonderland. We end our visit to Busan in the center that evening. The city has many nice small, local and international restaurants, where you can eat fantastic and cheap.
Busan has the largest fish market in all of North and South Korea
From Busan we continue to other parts of South Korea. We will end in style with a visit to the largest and most famous fish market in this country: the Jagalchi Market. It starts pouring heavily, we almost see the fish come back to life and swim away. Literally everything here is underwater in an hour! We run from stall to stall through the rain, while the other people just put on their ponchos and carry on quietly. As if they experience this every Tuesday. South Korea is a country where they are used to all types of weather, especially rain!
Would you like to take the weather into account? The best time to travel to South Korea is just before and just after summer. The most rain falls in July.
Want to read more about this great adventure immediately? Read more about our backpacking adventure in Seoul!
