Day 42 was the day to conquer Busan. I planned so much into the trip and unfortunately the plans were messed up halfway. Nonetheless, it was one of the most fulfiling trips ever and we covered quite a bit of stuff.
Busan has this city bus tour thing. You can pay 10,000KRW and you can get up and down different stops after that. There are two routes from what I remember and I chose this particular one because it covered quite a few locations which interested us.
We got to Busan subway station for the starting point of the city bus tour. Get out from exit 8, turned right and walked until you see Arirang hotel. There should be a bus stop directly opposite Arirang hotel and that should be your starting point. I would totally urge everyone to get there earlier especially if it is the school holidays season etc. You are not only fighting for spaces with tourists, but also with their locals. We reached at 9.30am but could not board the bus until 10.30am. Bus only comes every 30 minutes so if you plan a lot of destinations to cover like we did, please get there early. Tickets are also on a first-come-first-serve basis if I remember correctly.
First destination for the day was Taejondae, and undoubtedly one of my favourite places in Busan. This place looked amazing seriously. By the time we arrived at Taejongdae, it was about 11.10am already. Inside Taejongdae, there are a few stops. It's quite a long walk and you can easily spend 3hours there (mostly because of walking). Alternatively, you can take a tram up. We only stopped at the lighthouse stop also because it was the highlight of Taejongdae and we didn't have a lot of time.
You could get a ticket for the tram up at 1,500KRW. For the endless walking, I would say this is so worth it. Also because it was August and hence it was crazily hot, and it's a steep slope up, and it's only trees with not much scenery. Or maybe we were just too lazy.
Tram comes by every 10 minutes or so but please be prepared to wait a while because apparently, everyone is equally lazy like us. The queue was about 30 minutes long at the very least so please spare quite a bit of time for Taejongdae.
There were a lot of amazing sceneries alone at the lighthouse stop. Not sure about the other stops but this was more than enough to impress me.
There are steps leading down there, and if you would like, you can have some fresh (but definitely overpriced) seafood at the edge of the cliff. Might be a good price to pay for the scenery and the experience. I would do it one day if I have the time and money.
I wasn't even at the edge of the cliff yet but it's pretty scary to take a picture there. It was slippery because it was drizzling and also because of the waves that splatter droplets of water every once in a while and with the rocks so unstable. But gather your courage for the photos you get will definitely be lovely.
We took about 1.5 hours to get up and down and plus the time for snapping photos. No one wanted to leave this place even though we were severely behind time. It's such a nice chilling place. Could sit down to sip some coffee at the rocks hahah. The tram down (thankfully) didn't have that much of a queue and we got down quickly.
You could spot the bus stops for the city tours pretty easily. Look out for this sign!
The unfortunate experience with the bus tour happened yet again. Bus did not come after half an hour, but came after an hour instead. My schedule was pushed back by another half an hour. There was also traffic jam around Jagalchi market area and the bus reached 15 minutes later than its destinated time (which was already half an hour later). Moreover, the bus announces that the last bus leaving Jagalchi for Busan station is 4.30pm instead of 5pm. But it was already 3pm when we reached. I didn't know what went wrong with that bus system that day or if it is like this all the time (schedules changed, stops skipped without prior notice) but I was pretty unhappy.
Jagalchi market was one of the more famous stops and I wouldn't want to rush my schedule into an hour or so just to catch the bus. Furthermore, we haven't even had our lunch even though it's 3pm already and we were all starving. We decided to just sit down for a good lunch and forget everything for a while.
We settled down at a restaurant upstairs and skipped the market tour to buy our food. Not sure if it's because of that, the food turned out more expensive than I expected. Noryanjin fish market (please refer to day 7 i think) was much cheaper and the experience was more pleasant. But now that I reach Busan, I just wanted to eat 산낙지 (sannakji) or live octopus and 회 (huei or fish sashimi) so we headed off to eat it. I feel kind of cheated. The lady boss said sannakji + huei + abalone for 60,000KRW. But apparently the abalone didn't come and the huei was so little given that the fish she showed us was so fat, but she said she went on to fry half the fish. I was pretty sure it wasn't the same fish, at least the size can't explain itself but well, tourists get chipped off now and then and I was too lazy to argue with her (also that I can't argue in Korean).
Just me posing with my huei but look! What a ridiculously small portion. And white fish huei is supposed to be pretty cheap in Korea compared to red fish like salmon pfffffffffffff.
We headed on to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple which offers one of the best views ever in Busan. We cabbed down from a nearby subway station because the temple closes at 6.30pm I think. The cab driver kept saying that he will wait for us up at the temple which we kindly declined but he didn't give up even until we paid him but we still politely (or irritatedly) said so. I thought he was just trying to scam us, but after that we regretted our decision knowing how difficult it was to catch a cab up at the temple. We resorted to walking down the slope (about 20 minutes) to the main road before managing to catch a cab.
We rushed to Haeundae beach because we really wanted to catch the sunset. Sadly nope, we didn't manage to. Reached Haeundae at around 7.45pm and it's bustling with people. We settled down at a random restaurant for dinner until 9pm or so. Nothing much to do at Haeundae beach though, and I'm pretty sure the seafood restaurants nearby are pretty much a ripoff, but well I haven't been in to take a look though.
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We then took a subway to Gwangan station to see the famous Gwangan Diamond Bridge. Sorry that the camera couldn't capture it well but it was a really beautiful place. It was just the perfect place to sit down on the white sand (looks white even though it's very dark already) with a cuppa. Maybe I'm being a little biased here but I prefer Gwangalli beach to Haeundae beach. Haeundae is slightly overrated though.
Ending off with one of the prettiest night views I've seen in Korea. Though Namsan Tower is still my favourite haunt at night :)
