Solo Korea Trip DAY 4 – Off to Busan, Haedong Yonggung Temple, Haeundae Beach

Welcome back to my Korea post series! And without further ado, let's get going ~~

My decision to visit Busan when I'm in Korea was planned however I didn’t get to stack up my itineraries for it beforehand. I booked my KTX ticket just the night before, hence I struggled quite much on the Seoul station, where I have to print out the tickets and search for printing stores nearby.

I took some time on the train to plan my trip, and here comes my itinerary for day 4, 5 and 6. It was a rather slow moving pace compared to the one in Seoul since I didn’t know for sure where to go in Busan except on the day 5, when I really want to visit this cultural village that I always have my eye on.

I remember my train take off around 9.30 and I reached Busan around 1 I think. 

From there I took the subway again to my next Airbnb host’s house in Haeundae area, reached the place around 3 p.m.

Busan is calmer in a way that the road is much bigger, higher buildings here and there compared to Seoul where every area is quite dense with smaller houses surrounded with bustling sound of people and cars. It was a nice place to get out from all the busy pace of Seoul for a moment.

The area where I stayed were quite overwhelming, in a good way!

Busantopia.

I didn’t manage to visit much on my first day in Busan; I only went to 2 places which is Haedong Yonggung Temple and Haeundae Beach. As for the transportation, I mostly use bus when I'm there. It was quite convenient to use subway for several main city spots, however I found that for tourist famous spots, most of them have to be reached by bus.

After resting a bit in my room and put away all of my stuffs, I went directly for my highlight of the day spot which is the temple that I found to be very unique as it faces the ocean directly, and of course, by bus (which I forgot the route already).

Even though the entrance to the temple were a little bit far away from the main road, I knew that I'm on the right track since the road to the main temple were full of statues.

After passing several stairs and walk a little bit to the tip of the cliff, finally I can see what I called as the "postcard spot":

So many scattered little cute disciples!

Based on the websites I found, it was recommended to  go to this temple at night or early morning to see the sunrise or sunset; but I found that the view during the day from the top of the temple was breathtaking too.

Purely satisfied.

I only stay on that place until 6 p.m and decided to off to Haeundae Beach as it was getting late. 

After my visit to Gwangalli Beach on the next day later, I can say personally I liked Haeundae much more than Gwangalli since Haeundae was not as crowded as Gwangalli.

There are people having performances alongside the beach too, it was a nice way to spend a slow night either with yourself or with friends. 

Too bad Jakarta didn’t have this kind of entertainment, the one that I knew in Jakarta doesn’t have proper maintenance thus tend to get dirty. Thumbs up for Haeundae!

And here we are again! My visit to Haeundae concludes my day 4 in Korea and day 1 in Busan.

It was not the best day ever in my trip to be honest, as one small incident happen along the way. 

When I’m on the way to the temple from my staying place, one tiny bit of dust stuck in my eye from all the strong wind blowing, and it stuck for around good 3 painful hours that I even considering to go to eye doctor there. Spend quite time to search for eyedrops, bought one but still didn’t manage to make it go away with it. 

After several times re-examining my own eye wit a small mirror that I had, I finally found that the dust stuck on the inside of upperside of my eyelid (WTF). Finally managed to get it out with the help of a bobby pin. The dust was soooo tiny but damn hurt a lot, I mean, A LOT as I’m tearing up for those hours nonstop. The most WTF moment in my life I thought I’ll go blind. No joke. So glad I can get it out during the day and after that I feel that it was the greatest feeling ever, having nothing stuck on my eye as usually I take those feeling for granted. Who knew small tiny dust can hurt that bad. Phew.

However aside from that incident, the day goes well along the way. And I can’t wait to tell you my next day trip to the cultural village which is my most favorite moment during my whole 8 days trip to Korea!

Heaven forgive my day 4.

Please click links below to see which day you want to browse! (Will update the link one by one with every new post that I’ve uploaded)

See you on the next posts!

Solo Korea Trip DAY 3 – Garden of Morning Calm, Le Petite France, Nami Island

Hi again and thank you for keeping on with me! Sorry that the post were a little bit delayed from the last post; blame whole-week overtime on my job now. Boo.

Let's get started then!

For day 3, I decided to travel a little bit more outside of Seoul, since I'm already get the hang of the transport system here (more or less), and to clear out far away area itinerary before I head off to Busan and come back Seoul to shop.

The targeted areas for day 3 were Garden of Morning Calm, Le Petite France and Nami Island, since all of them were in one area of upper Seoul.

Woke up a little bit earlier than usual, using train and arrived in what so called Changpyeong Station as a starting point. 

From here, I went to the bus stop directly and ride a day bus which covers all of the area above mentioned for only one time payment around 6000 won. Don’t forget to take schedule leaflet so you will know when to take off from one place to the next one with the bus!

My first stop was The Garden of Morning Calm, 30-40 minutes from the main station.

It was a very nice garden with several themed areas which makes me eager to stroll each one of them. Since I went there mid August, there was not much to see, but I bet when it was spring area it will be more satisfying to go to. Here are some photos that I took back then:

Vast areas everywhere, literally everywhere.

So much hidden spots that can be explored further too! Not to mention that each garden have its own theme, if I'm not wrong.

Good thing was the garden was not as crowded as I expect it would be, which is nice. So satisfied with this place!

After bought several souvenirs on the garden shop and a Popsicle in a nearby stall, I decided to continue my trip to Le Petite France, which I’m quite excited about; since the place itself have been shown so many time in several Korean Drama. Went there with the same day bus and reaching ~

They even put the drama posters on the entrance! Such a hype from the start!

When I reached there, it was indeed very crowded. The moment I passed the entrance was just right with the time for their puppet show, so I sat down on the stadium area (dunno how to call that one) and watched the performance for around 30 minutes. It was very fun!

Finished with the performance, I walked through several areas, and took quite a lot of photos.

Even though some spots were very eye catching (hands down) and fun to explore, I can’t say I’m truly satisfied with this place. Some of the spots were really nice and photo-perfect, however some of the other were just plain dull and under very low maintenance. It’s as if they only pay attention to some spots that have high traffic while places with low traffic, they just let it be.

However, for overall it was worth the visit if you: 1) personally like Le Petite France story, and 2) interested in visiting one of some famous Korean Drama setting. My only mistake was maybe I went to the Little Prince Museum in Japan (Hakone) first and it was much calmer and properly maintenanced, resulting in a constant comparing between those two in the middle of my visit. The one in Korea is much bigger though.

Continue with the journey ~ Finished with Le Petite France, I moved on to my final destination of the day, Nami Island! And I think almost everyone have the same route as me as the queue for Nami Island itself is very long. I stood alongside the road to Nami Island because there’s no seat left on the bus, and finally reached the entrance 15 minutes later.

From there it’s not finished yet, since the Nami Island itself was separated by one quite big lake; in order to reach the main Island, we have to take ferry to reach the main spot.

Nami Island itself were famously known from a drama called Winter Sonata, which was a big hit during their time. That explains too why most of the tourist definitely will go to this place once they go Korea. However, personally and neutrally speaking, Nami Island were nice but not so mind-blowing as I expected it will be (boo!). Maybe because I didn't quite follow the Winter Sonata hype? Who knows.

Some of the spots are really camera worthy though:

I think it will be much different if I visit this place during fall; with all the yellow leaves it must be really pretty. Since I went there mid August, it was a standard green all over and not much to see. Oh, and I think somewhat you need companion here to take a lot of pictures of you. Haha.

They have some cute art stalls beside the main road:

The main place is finally here, the statue of Winter Sonata and the Ginko tree road? I kinda forgot.

The place itself closes around 6 p.m, and I managed to spend only around 1 hour for the whole area since it was quite late when I reached the main entrance.

After finished with my very short exploration and photo-taking in several interesting areas, I decided to leave Nami Island and call it a day by strolling around my staying area If I got the time. I managed to get to Dongdaemun area since it was only 3 stops from my stay’s station.

Except the tax free shopping area, personally I didn’t like Dongdaemun at all; the price were very expensive for some branded stuff; indeed it was cheap on several cheaper places however in that places, they didn’t accept any fitting for the clothes at all. 

I’m quite confused with the area, is it a high end shopping place? But I don’t think so. It’s not a low end one either… and I wonder how can they maintain their sales with a mixed target market in one area. Never really fond of this one. I remember I only went back once again to buy Sulwhasoo skin care series for my mum in the tax free shopping spot. And then I never visit this place anymore. Sorry Dongdaemun, you're off my repeat visit list!

And that visit sums up my day 3 in Korea! It was a fun day when it comes to the touch with the nature (yet I tend to judge quite a lot on this day haha) but overall I had so much fun (judging). With this in mind I can’t be more than exciting to go to Busan on the next day!

Please click links below to see which day you want to browse! (Will update the link one by one with every new post that I’ve uploaded)

See you on the next posts!