Busan

We decided to take the fast speed train KTX for our journey from Seoul to Busan. The train droves with a speed of around 300km/h towards the south and it took us about 2 hrs and 40 minutes for a distance of approximately 350 to 400km. The train is an Alstom made one, from my former employer ;-)

After we arrived in Busan and in our hostel, we received so many tips about sightseeing places to go in the city and around Busan from our hostel warden. He marked so many places in the map that at the end the map was fully marked with curls…

Busan is a seaport and also a vacation place for the local Korean people who like to make beach holiday. In Busan you can find different beaches, the most favourite hotspot one is the Haeundae beach, there you can find a stage where famous Korean pop bands play during weekend…definitely something special…

We spent the following days in Busan by exploring the city, Busan has 3 different downtowns, and the city itself is widely spread into different bays. There are plenty of restaurants, cafes, bars and food sales stalls. And of course you can find lots of shopping malls around. Culturally we visited 2 different temples, Cheongnyeonam which is located on top of a mountain and Haedong Yonggungsa which is located at a coast. Both are very nice and idyllic located. Furthermore we saw a LED lightshow at the Gwangalli beach, is definitely something special but somehow I miss a bit music for the show…

Busan has a small “sky walk” at a cliff on the coast, a footbridge made of glass where you can see the ground. The walking through the footbridge is free of charge, it´s quite funny but I guess not as impressive as the Grand Canyon one.

In Busan you can find different parks, the vegetation is similar to the rain forest. In June it´s pretty hot and humid. We went to one of the park and you start to sweat quickly.

Culinary we went to a have an “imperial menu”, it consists of lots of different dishes in small portions. The restaurant has a historical background, it was even once visited by the former first lady of President Bush (well, there was a picture of her in that restaurant)…but meanwhile the facility is a bit in a bad state…but the food was delicious. Further detail under Merys food corner.

I couldn´t resist to visit the local oceanarium in Busan, it´s the well-known Sea life, they promote to own the largest tank in South Korea. In Busan there is also a bird sanctuary on the Eulsukdo island. Unfortunately I couldn´t find so many birds, maybe because I didn´t spend that much time there…it was also tooo hot during the daytime…anyway, the biggest area is restricted for the public, maybe the birds are hiding there J But I could take some pictures of some species living there. Further detail under Dennis animal corner.

The stopover in South Korea is now over, 8 days is not really enough time to discover a country, but it was very interesting to see at least 2 different places and learn a bit about the culture and people. Those who love Asia food and also like to party (Korean people like to drink), as well as to see the contrast of modern and old culture, will have fun here.

Today we continue our journey to Fukuoka, Japan. I took the speedboat from Busan to Fukuoka. It use a hydrofoil technique which allows the boat to drive above the sea by it underwater wings. With this technique the boat has less resistant and the boat drives smoother. The engine is a jet engine which is pretty fast, quite a cool technique the whole idea. The journey took around 3 hrs.