Busan Vacation Day 1

Gamcheon Culture Village - 감천문화마을

Summer is here! Finally I was able to take my week vacation. With shoreline beaches calling to me, it was off to Busan that I went. It was a vacation well spent. After spending about 4 hours on the bus to get there, and having a somewhat rough taxi ride to our guest house, my friend and I finally made it. We payed and escaped the embarrassing argument that our taxi driver had gotten into, and safely checked in to Yusun Guesthouse. It wasn't the fanciest guest house or the nicest, but we had a room to ourselves, WiFi, free ramyeon, and nice hosts. Plus, the rooms were named after planets, and we were staying in Uranus, so the jokes were never ending throughout the trip. The guest house also was conveniently located near the Gimhae airport.

For our first night I took my friend to the one area I was already familiar with from my previous Busan trip, Jagalchi and BIFF square (Busan International Film Festival). Jagalchi was the same as the last time I visited, lively and wet. This time however, as we were waking through one of the big fish decided to make a big splash as we were passing; I had a nice, refreshing saltwater bath. I left Jagalchi a bit saltier than when I arrived. Yay for seawater. We looked around all the street vendors selling food and tried some tasty stuff: fishcakes, skewered chicken, potato spirals, and even rolled ice cream. I always watched videos of street vendors making the rolled ice cream desert on Facebook. Finally I could be one of those traveled people and make a video of it myself. I went simple with just strawberry ice cream, but it was smooth, creamy, and absolutely delicious.

The following day we started out at Gamcheon Culture Village (감천문화마을). It was as enchanting as I had heard, although the hellish heat took some of the fun out of it. We didn't do the scavenger hunt or see the entire village start to finish, but we walked around, saw the sights and the meandering pathways from house to house. The entire village is very artistic, with murals, uniquely painted wooden fish, and crafts all throughout the paths. Aside from the stunning views, my most memorable moment at the village was the liquid nitrogen cereal that I tried. Hands down has to be one of the most exciting things I've eaten, and as a science major I could appreciate the use of liquid nitrogen for creative purposes. My curiosity had to be satisfied. It is a simple treat, cereal puffs and liquid nitrogen. You dip the puffs into the nitrogen, pick them up with your chopsticks, let them drip dry, place them in your mouth, close it tight, and crush them. When the puffs collapse they emit lots of smoke, which if you keep your mouth shut, will pour out of your nose. It is awesome. Keeping your mouth shut can prove to be difficult though, as in my case not only was it very cold, but I kept choking on the smoke. The whole experience was very fun and exciting; I highly recommend giving it a try if you stumble upon some.

Fish Say - House of Light this way

Room of Moon

Fish show you the way

Fish made of fish!

Liquid Nitrogen Cereal Puffs! 

Below is the video of the street vendor making the liquid nitrogen cereal for me. 

Village Hours:  March - November (9:00 - 18:00), December - February (9:00 - 17:00)

As the village is a residential area, they ask you only tour at specific times.

Follow the transportation directions located here. To get to the bus stop from the subway station, exit the station and go straight, following the sidewalk until you come to the first bus stop.  You shouldn't need to cross the street. The bus I took was green in color, and it will have a sign in English for the village. 

From the culture village our next stop was the Busan Trickeye Museum (10,000 won). I had been to the one in Seoul, but was pleased to see that they weren't completely the same. This one had some different murals than the one I had already been to. It was a lot of fun acting like idiots and taking ridiculous pictures in the museum, especially since everyone there was doing it. From there we went to Centum City, Asia's largest department store. Let me tell you, it is indeed large. It was HUGE. I couldn't even imagine trying to see everything in there. I also am not sure I would want to, as the prices were pretty large in there as well. I prefer the cute things I see on the street, but if you are looking for some high quality brands Centum City might be the place.

This ladies and gentleman, is a Starbucks "Real Corn Frapucinno."
Yes you probably are wondering the same thing as I did, "What in the world is a corn frapucinno...!?! Is that even edible?"

Well I am here to tell you that yes, it is edible. If creamed corn is your thing this is the drink for you. It tastes like blended cream corn, with corn chunks, and whip cream topped with cheese powder. It was the cheese powder that didn't sit well with me, it just, did not belong. Personally I don't think the drink was bad, just too much corn in drinkable form for me in one sitting. I couldn't finish it. However, for 6,000 won you can satisfy your curiosity and get a tall sized drink.


To end our first day in Busan, we hit up Haeundae Beach. Haeundae is like THE place for young people. It was filled with people and umbrellas covered the sand. They had the beach separated into sections, swimming, water sports, etc. I wanted to swim more than anything, but unfortunately it was nearly impossible for us to find a locker for our things, and we weren't comfortable leaving our valuables unattended on the beach. While we searched for lockers, swimming time on the beach ended, as you can't swim once it begins to get dark. Instead we walked along the sand, wading in the water and listening to the music from the stage nearby. Turns out we came to Busan on a festival weekend, so there was lots happening down on the beach. That being said, the beach was trashed, literally people had left trash everywhere. It was my first time seeing such a litter covered beach, so it bothered me a bit. Every time I saw someone throw their trash in the sand or straight into the ocean I'd go off about the Pacific Garbage Patch and their contributions and...yeah...can't help it. It irritated me. Like either throw it away properly or don't buy it.

The sunset was pretty though

Once the sun set we hunted down some samgyeopsal for dinner. Someone handed us a flyer for a restaurant on the street, so we decided to try it. The waiter showed us the menu, and it said samgyeopsal 9,000 won. So I said that we wanted one serving of it. He paused and we had some brief back and fourth, eventually he used a translator app just to be sure we understood him, and told us that one serving was 3 slices of meat. We confirmed "three for 9,000?" He said yes. Now, either there was a mistranslation or we got ripped off. The food came, and it was delicious. The strips of meat were thick and tasty. I was very satisfied with our meal until I went to pay. I was charged 27,000 won. Otherwise understood as, 9,000 / strip of meat... I am not really sure what happened. The menu said 9,000; I didn't see anything specifying per piece of meat, and the waiter confirmed 3 for 9,000... and yet the bill... I don't want to assume I was ripped off either though so I just let it go. Mistranslation is possible. I thought 9,000 was a really great deal for the meal, but still 27,000 was a bit much.

To end the night we went back to Haeundae, where we had heard IU (yes, super famous singer and actress IU) was supposedly going to be a guest performance on stage for the festival. We had heard correctly! We were not anywhere near her, but with the big screen for the stage I was able to see her perform some of her music. For FREE! I like IU as an actress, but I had never listened to her music before. She sings well. It was also really amusing to see everyone sprinting across the beach when they realized why a huge crowd had gathered. I am glad I had the opportunity to see her perform, especially since she is super famous. We were very lucky, in the right place at the perfect time.

IU on stage

After IU, I also saw another of my personal favorite acts. Park Jong Won, the magician I first saw when I traveled to Yeosu, was also performing on Haeundae Beach. I made sure to get a great seat to watch his show and I was impressed once again, even if it was the same act. He is truly a talented entertainer. This time I made sure to record a different part of his act, the light sticks.

Follow Park Jong Won on Instagram @thepjw13

Once he finished up with his show my friend and I had to run and get to the last subway before they closed for the night, so our adventure for the day ended there. It was a long and eventful day. We saw many places, tried many new things, had the chance to be goofballs, and see some really great people perform. Overall it was nearly perfect.