Busan Oct 2013

Busan Oct 2013

In Oct, we took a trip down to Busan using the high speed KTX train.
It only took about 2 hours, very fast and efficient!
Seating was 1-2 and there was a food and drinks cart as well as wifi onboard.

The train station was actually located quite a distance from our hotel, which was near Haeundae beach. Cab ride took about 25 minutes.
Hotel Illua's exterior looks like a Korean palace, nice. :)
This was low season so there were lots of vacant rooms.

Despite being late Oct and 10 degrees celsius in Seoul, the temperature in Busan was summer temperature!
There were even guys without shirts and wearing only swim shorts on the beach.
I had to remove my jacket and sweater, wearing just a tshirt.

This beach is jam packed with people during the summer.

Love aquariums so we went to the nearby Busan aquarium which was not bad.

Busan being the site of a film festival each year, had movie posters featuring the aquarium residents.
Very cute!

After getting lost, we finally found a subway station and went to take in the night sights of Gwangandaegyo bridge at Gwangalli beach. We used this bridge when taking the taxi from the train station to the hotel.
Nice thing about the subway station in Busan is that it also uses the same payment system as the one in Seoul so we didnt have to buy new tickets. 

Busan, being a port city, is famous for its seafood.
So, we went to a seafood market where we bought a flat fish.
Competition was high and the vendor even gave us several small fishes and an octopus for free!

 After paying for the fish, we took it upstairs to a restaurant who prepared the seafood for us.
It was all sashimi style.
Cant say i'm not keen on the octopus and small fish but the flat fish was quite tasty.

Night scene of Gwangandaegyo bridge.

Next day, we had a pan fried fish lunch at a restaurant near the hotel.
Very traditional decor.
This is quite a famous restaurant run by a couple with 40 years history.
Photo of the owner on the top left signboard.
They even grow their own veggies!

We took a local bus to the BIFF(Busan International Film Festival) shopping area.

 This pancake thing is super delicious!
It is cheap and has pine nuts and other stuffing in it.
Really cant eat just one!
There are variations amongst the stalls and the "famous stall" actually didnt taste as good as the one shown below.

Shaved ice or ice kachang in Busan!
Who knew! lol

 These dumplings are good too.

 There is also a seafood wet market on the other side of the shopping area.
No salmon or tuna around but the mackerels looked really good.

We wanted to take a bus to Taejongdae Park but just missed it so we took a cab instead.
Cab took the long route...

Taejongdae Park is along the coast and has some spectacular scenery.
There is a tram which takes visitors up to several view points and makes a complete circle.
Highly recommend this park.

We couldnt hop on the tram at times due to it being packed so we had to hoof it up the hill.
Good exercise.
Some locals walk up and down the hill for their exercises.

We stopped at the BIFF shopping market again for dinner.
This particular restaurant had amazing banchan side dishes!
The first photo showed only the banchan!
I mean, all these banchan is enough for two person's meal!
The mackerel and meat was very tasty.
The main course of tofu stew had not even arrived yet.
I ate way too much that night...

Next morning, we went back to the woman's restaurant and had their signature fish soup.
Almost everyone who went to that restaurant ordered this fish soup.
It was very good and not fishy at all.

We left for the bus station to go to Andong next.
It was a really fun trip!