Busan

I had the pleasure of heading off to Busan this past weekend. It is a place I have only gotten a taste of last fall as my fabulous weekend there was cut short and turned into a rushed 24 hour stay. Nevertheless, we learned from our previous travel mistakes, planned ahead better this time, and had an amazing visit.

KTX

Seoul Station

We left Seoul Friday night and took the KTX train leaving Seoul Station. We arrived in Busan Station a mere 3 hours later after a very smooth and relaxing ride! We took a bus ride to our hostel, Pobi Guest House, and crashed around 1am. (this hostel was phenomenal, very helpful staff if you are looking for one in Busan.)

We woke up refreshed and ready to conquer this port city. Myself and 2 friends headed off to Haedong Yongkung Temple. After a somewhat somber and questioning car ride (hearing about crazy North Korean's declaration of war on our current country of inhabitation) we arrived at a truly gorgeous site. When at war, you may as well live it up, right? Enjoy your magnificent surroundings, soak up the culture and live every hour like it counts, right? Well we were! We became totally immersed in Korean culture as we began to walk towards the market in front of the temple entrance and heard the Korean music playing around us. There were many street vendures selling street food, old ladies sorting through their vegetables they were selling, and little trinkets in the market place where I bought my own souvenir.

market before temple

After we walked through the market we came to an area with statues, cherry blossom trees, and lanterns hanging. Truly so pretty.

We came across a giant statue with incents.....

statue

 .....and then a walkway with some Buddha statues that was leading up to the main part of the temple and the amazing view.

As we walked down the steps we saw the most breathtaking view of the temple overlooking the gorgeous cliffs and the ocean! We heard more Korean music as we made our way closer to the temple which helped to set the cultural mood.

Of all the temples I have seen in Asia, this one is special to me because of it's spectacular view of the ocean and fantastic cliffs. It just seemed so magnificent with the unique architecture put into the temple alongside God's beautiful nature setting. It was like God put his touch on this man made temple when he carved out the cliffs next to it.

We ventured into the temple and saw the Goddess of Mercy...

 A big gold Buddha...

A Shrine room where people were praying....

 And some really cute gold pigs with lanterns! (they were my favorite!)

After we left the temple we decided to go to a local park area that was known for it's cherry blossom tree's. This walkway was right next to the ocean and the beach and had the most beautiful tree's running along the entire street! It smelled fantastic and was a sure sign that spring has finally reached Korea. Good riddens winter, I wont miss you!  Here is the beautiful street we strolled down...

 

The tree's were so pretty that we just had to climb one to get a picture!

 

 When we finally got to the end of this stunning cherry blossom tree road we found this view of Haeundae Beach:

We were blown away by how beautiful, relaxing, and peaceful this city seemed to be. It was a far cry from the busy hussle and bussle of Seoul. We continued our stroll towards the beach and found more spectacular views.

 This city just kept getting better and better. We walked some more through markets in town, had some lunch and met up with some friends and finished off the day with some delicious dak galbi. 

The next day we were excited about the festival we were attending. We were going to the Holi Festival which is a festival thrown by the Indians in Korea, as it is an Indian festival and tradition that celebrates the coming of spring. Well I was feeling very enthusiastic about spring being here and was all about going to a festival! Especially when we found out that it was all about throwing paint on each other and eating some Indian snacks and dancing around on the beach. We put on our white shirts and pants that we didn't mind ruining, and heading off to the beach.

 We were soooooo excited for our white shirts to NOT be white anymore as we were given pink and green paint to throw on others and waited in anticipation for them to tell us to 'GO'! We put on our cool hats they gave us, ate our somosa's, and then as soon as we were allowed everyone went absolutely insane! 

I felt paint being thrown at my back and hitting my neck and could barely see through the mist of colors. People were throwing paint up in the air and yelling "Happy Holi!" and our shirts became fantastically tie-died. My girlfriends and I made our way through the crowd smacking paint onto people's shirts as they would smear it all over our faces! 

 There was nothing but laughter, chaos, and colored paint for at least 25 minutes. It was SO MUCH FUN!

 After our festival was over we proceeded to try to clean ourselves up and change so we could head over to one more spot in Busan before our 8pm train. We decided to go to Nampo-dong which is an area that has a very cool outdoor market and a world famous fish market. We walked through the market enjoying the variety of street foods (we even saw candy covered strawberries!) and then headed off to the fish market.

candy covered strawberries

 The fish market was pretty big and of course had lots of raw fish they would kill for you instantly if you wanted to buy it. There was an insane variety of seafood; so much that I realized I was unsure about what some of the items even were! The fish market was impressive to say the least, but I will say that Seoul's fish market is just as good if not maybe a little cooler if you ever have to choose! 

We headed back to our hostel, got our things, and went back to Busan Station to catch the KTX train back to Seoul. It was a fabulous weekend full of culture and great memories! I will definitely have to visit this port city again!

Busan