Busan is an unexpected delight. From my window seat high above, South Korea’s second-largest city was half a forested seaside paradise and half a fever-dream of identical skyscrapers. Homes with blue and green roofs filled any spaces in between, and tucked themselves all the way up to the foothills. A distant highway took the really scenic route around the inner city, by which I mean it actually hovered out above the Sea of Japan.
Once I was at ground level, flashes of real Korean life came to me through the light-rail windows. Their temples are riots of color, each one looking like a psychadelic 1960s album cover. Korean script blanketed the buildings with its cute bubbly characters. And every time the metro approached a stop with beach access, a soothing soundtrack of seabirds and crashing waves played over the loudspeaker. The third time I heard the noise, I knew I was home, because I was staying at Haeundae Beach.
A warm salty breeze swept down the metro stairs. I emerged onto a wide pedestrian boulevard that beelined towards the sea. I walked past selfie-booth stores stuffed to the gills with props and cute backdrops, tanks of live sea creatures for sale, and entire shops dedicated to cartoon characters. Behind them all towered 40-story skyscrapers, catching the dying sun’s rays and tossing them around. Still, I only really had eyes for the sea.
Haeundae Beach
My bare toes scrunched up with joy when they hit the warm sand. Standing at the heart of Haeundae Beach, I looked out towards the decidedly colder country of Japan that I’d just flown in from. The wing of coastline that flew away to my left held chrome skyscrapers and a cutesy skyrail that was carrying tourists along the coast. The right wing was a tangle of dark subtropical forest hugging a rocky coast. Guess which one I picked.
I rolled up my sleeves and cuffs to offer my skin to the warm March sun as I walked. Most of the older-generation Koreans I passed, though, had done the exact opposite. Their feet were bare in the surf, but almost every other inch of their skin was covered by wide-brim hats and gloves and sometimes even masks on their lower faces. I was reminded of my American grandmother, who grew up on a Michigan dairy farm in the 1920s. Tanned skin got her labeled as a farm girl at school, so she’d grown into a sun-shy adult. Although American fashion has since embraced the sun-kissed look, it seemed Korean had gone a different direction.
Beachcombing eventually beat out people-watching in the race for my attention. Blue shells and pink ones, weird shells and familiar ones all found their way into my palm. A good number of them migrated into my backpack and lived there until I left Busan. At the edge of the beach I lost twenty minutes finding anemones and limpets in a tidepool. It definitely would have been more if the sun wasn’t already flirting with the horizon.
Dongbaek Park
At the edge of the beach I climbed up onto the concrete promenade that hugs the whole bay and found a row of public pressurized air guns waiting for me. I share Anakin Skywalker’s dim opinion of sand, at least when it’s stuck to my skin, so I grabbed the nearest one and hosed myself down.
Despite the air’s warmth, the forest was still awakening from its winter slumber. Dong-baek means camellia flower in Korean, and those blooms were out in force, but they were lonely bursts of color in the otherwise evergreen wood. Busan is a biophilic city, or a city where nature is embraced, and recently they’ve poured billions of won into their urban forests. A lovely wooden boardwalk led through Dongbaek. It wove up and around the coast, past limpet-covered boulders, and even across a tiny pedestrian suspension bridge. I already felt like Busan was a place I could get behind.
Haedong Yonggungsa Temple
There were a few reasons I’d picked Busan over Seoul, and Haedong Yonggungsa Temple was top of the list. For funsies, I walked to the temple via the coastal path instead of taking a bus. Along the way I got to visit a dozen tiny different worlds. Just beyond Haeundae’s glitzy skyscrapers sat a little harbor where fishmongers hawked their morning’s catch to the few of us passing by. Emerald strips of harvested seaweed hung from fences and ropes and every other horizontal surface as I walked along, left out to dry in the sun. Overhead the Sky Capsule hummed along, each tiny pod ferrying tourists north to one of the city’s skywalks. I was grateful for it, since the path I walked was mostly empty.
If each of those tiny worlds was a sentence, then they were punctuated by forested pocket parks. Civilization simply ended and let the wilderness take over. Each wood teemed with early-spring life. Local humans loved the parks too, and people jogged by with tiny personal radios hung around their necks, usually blaring classical music or a talk show. I even passed an open-air forest gym with rows of shiny dumbells.
Halfway to the temple, I found hipster paradise: oceanfront cafes had colonized an entire street. I picked one with an outdoor terrace for a little pick-me-up, but the air still had a nip to it and I retreated inside to sunbathe through a window instead. Where the cafes finally ended, the surf shops began. Rows of surfboards sat patiently in the sand of Songjeong Beach, waiting for the day’s waves and crowds to pick up.
The temple
Haedong Yonggungsa Temple is a dragon that curls around the coast. For real: the architechts designed it in the shape of a sleeping dragon, and its name translates to “Korean Dragon Palace Temple.” The complex hops and crawls along the rocky shore. Buddha statues sit in a series of rocky crevices, each one dedicated to different human-worthy goals – success, marriage, birth – and their stone bellies were darkened from being rubbed over the decades as a form of prayer. I made meaningful eye contact with the academic success statues, although I couldn’t quite bring myself to touch them.
The temple is certainly gorgeous. It’s also a pretty good microcosm for Busan’s overall vibe: the place where culture meets nature meets the sea. However, I was underwhelmed by my temple visit. Walking along the coast was a highlight of my long Busan weekend, but I dilly-dallied so long that I arrived at midday, when both the crowds and sun were high. If I got the chance to visit again, I’d either take the bus in the early morning to catch the sunrise or start walking later in the day for a sunset visit.
Haeunjeongsa Temple
Haeunjeongsa Temple in Haeundae, on the other hand, was a temple I had never heard of and instantly loved. It was nearly empty when I found it, save for some local worshippers who just kicked off their shoes and scurried into the temple. Haeunjeongsa has everything I could want from a temple: the pagoda, the row of pensive monk statues, the gigantic bell. The dancheong, the rainbow paintings on Korean temples that symbolize wood, fire, earth, metal and water, which were among the best ones I saw in Busan. Best of all, though, it has the view. From the veranda I could see all of Haeundae’s electic mix of skyscrapers and homes. There’s probably a lesson in here somewhere about not looking places up before you visit them.
The people
I’d flown to Busan direct from Osaka, giving me a rare opportunity to juxtapose the neighboring cultures. In Japan I’d met a few genuinely friendly locals, including a pair of sisters who ran a lovely all-female hostel and an older woman who bowed to me in greeting as I walked through a suburb. In the major cities, though, there had been a general chilliness. Meanwhile in Busan, I was bowled over by friendly people looking to chat and help. At 7-11, the cashier volunteered information about getting a free second drink. At Solsot, the waitress saw me struggling and spent at least a minute of her valuable time giving me instructions about how to eat hotpot.
And once, while I was just walking along the main boulevard of Haeundae, an older man approached me. Somehow he’d figured out I was American without asking. In near-perfect English he thanked me (on behalf of Americans, I supposed) for our efforts in the 1950s war and for bringing Christianity to their nation. To be clear, I am an agnostic pacifist who’s rather against Western cultural imperialism, but none of these things seemed necessary to explain to a happy local stranger. Before walking away, he asked if he could pray with me, which I let him do since it seemed mostly harmless. After he left, I stood there for half a minute more, dazed by the encounter.
Even such seemingly small human connections can make all the difference when you’re traveling alone.
Inner city
I took no pictures of the inner city, which should speak to my general opinion of the place. There were a few highlights hiding among the commercial streets, like the short street flooded with secondhand bookshops and a “Street of Everything” filled with flea shops. Mostly the inner city just had that “anywhere” feeling, and after a few hours I had to run for the literal hills.
At the edge of the mountains, the orderly grid of streets and chain shops gave up. The streets became terraced, and they narrowed so much that cars could barely fit down them. From there a tangled web of alleys and staircases took over. Staircases could either be public “streets” or private entryways, and there was usually no way to tell them apart. At first I felt brave and put away my map, figuring I knew the general direction to head. Within five minutes I was lost.
Gamcheon Culture Village
Gamcheon Culture Village is a post-war refugee village that’s been recently revamped and painted in cheerful hues reminiscent of dancheong. It leans towards being a tourist trap, but it’s still a real neighborhood and there’s something undeniably charming about it. The neighborhood is perched inside a steep canyon. The upper rim is the main drag, with cafes and handicraft shops and kitschy photo opportunities. The moment you descend into the urban canyons, though, you’re almost entirely alone.
This kind of setting is where I thrive: endless forks in the road and no real consequences to taking any of them. Left-down-right, and I found a tiny shop selling hand-woven bracelets. Straight-up-left, and I came across an older gentleman chilling on a bench. He recommended I go up again, which he communicated only with smiles and Korean and hand gestures. In return I thanked him with a smile and a bow and an attempt at the word gamsahamnida. I lingered so long in the canyon that the sun had almost vanished by the time I emerged again.
Igidae Coastal Trail
I’m notorious for squeezing beautiful hikes into too-short windows of time. It’s nearly always worth it, so I just keep doing it. On my last morning in Busan, I thought I could manage one last coastal walk before my evening flight to Chiang Mai. Or rather, most of me really wanted to do it so I ignored the smaller part that urged me to just go chill at a beachside cafe.
Igidae Coastal Trail flows along another forested seaside coastline that has some rather impressive granite cliffs. It meant the trail swung up and down like a roller-coaser, much more of a knee-burner than the other coastal trails had been, which were walks in the proverbial park by comparison.
Being short on time, I was constantly torn between needing to walk fast and wanting to appreciate the views. So of course I did neither of those things well. I would linger for awhile, admiring a particular rock column or a tree, then remember what I was doing and hustle on down the trail until something else caught my attention and the cycle began anew. It was a beautiful and stressful 5 kilometer jog.
I arrived back to my hotel just barely in time for check-out, with wobbly knees and a sweaty brow. And it was worth it. What a way to bid adieu to lovely Busan.
Miscellaneous Busan Recommendations
HOME Bistro is a cute vegetarian restaurant with delicious food and a living-room vibe.
Haeundae Market is a whole street of takeaway food stalls, with all kinds of strange (live) seafood and desserts to try. It’s most active and interesting after dark. The toasted marshmallow ice cream sticks are worth a nibble.
Solsot Haeundae is a great place to try hot-pot (the waiters were kind enough to help me figure out how to eat it).
Huinnyeoul Culture Village is a mini version of Gamcheon Culture Village that’s on the coast. It’s a nice spot for brunch or a bit of shopping near the sea.
Travel Tips for Korea
Google/Apple Maps did not work when I was in South Korea (nor did AirTags & co). I used the local Naver Map app instead, which had a lot of useful restaurant ratings, has an English setting, and has real-time public transport information.
Obey crosswalk signals unless you want to get yelled at. This also applies if traffic is at a standstill, as I found out while walking through a gridlock of taxis waiting outside the airport.
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