Busan is the ultimate tourist destination in Korea. Other than Jeju and Seoul, Busan is where most people go. I went with Kimberly and Jenna and we found a nice hostel on Haeundae beach one of the most popular beaches in Busan! The location was absolutely perfect and we got free breakfast.
We went on a holiday weekend for 5 days and saw really a pretty seaside temple, bay 101 with the city lights, and gamcheon culture village. The downside is Kimberly was deathly sick and we didn't know at the time but we all got COVID-19 on the trip, yayyyy.
The first few days we lay on the Haeundae beach for hours resting and tanning. The weather was cool and not good for swimming but no one swims in Korea anyways. Most people only wade and just sit on the beach nothing else. I needed a beach vacation and this was exactly that. There is also a market nearby that skins eels and we watched them squirm around and ran away. We also ate Baskin robbins ice cream literally every night on the beach, they have some fun flavors in Korea like tteok, and Pikachu flavor?
We then went to the seaside temple which is absolutely gorgeous, but there were so many people around it was a bit crowded. The temple was carved into the side of the ocean and had a really pretty bridge and luckily not as many stairs as Yeosu. It also was much hotter here and we were drained of energy fast. The trip overall was a lot relaxing.
Gamcheon culture village is the first picture and it is just a lot of colorful buildings on mountains and valleys. It was a very poor shipping area and they made it into a cute tourist destination. They have walking paths and cafes and ice cream everywhere! We went into a cafe that had literally mannequins and strange photo opportunities everywhere! We laughed a lot and refreshed ourselves. Also, a man had two dogs on a leash attached to each other and not him so they walked themselves and he saw us gawking at them and letting us pet them in our laps and take pictures, I would say it was a success. We visited a tourist site from a famous movie, Ode to my Father, and again ended the night at Haeundae with ice cream.
We saw some of our other friends on the beach as well since It was a holiday weekend and enjoyed the first trip in Korea with foreign tourists around as well. The country was so lively!
After the trip ended and we took a train back to Seoul the sickness started and I was taken to a quarantine facility for 7 days. I lived with a random roommate who was Chinese and that was quite an adventure. The food was horrid in quarantine and the situation was awkward but I made the most of it.