hi guys in this video I'm going to show you how you can send three days in Busan
Busan is a second largest city in Korea and there is a ton of stuff to do there
as well as eat this is how my family and I chose to spend our time there. day one
go to Gamcheon culture village this is my number one thing to do in Busan just
because it's so pretty Gamcheon culture village is a former
slum that was converted into an art village in 2009. it was a haven for
Korean War refugees because Busan was one of the few places not held by the
north during the Korean War and as a result refugees poured into Busan and
many people settled here when the main parts of the city like Jagalchi
became overcrowded. then in 2009 the Ministry of Culture Sports and Tourism
launched a project to renovate home shown it was called dreaming of Busan
Machu Picchu the government hired artists to paint murals and create art
installations and the residents initially rejected the project and
didn't like it because tourists were taking photos of them and then they felt
that their homes were really modest and they didn't really want to show them off
but gradually they came to accept the changes. Gamcheon has now been featured in
a number of Korean dramas and TV shows and it's a hot spot for tourists if you
take a look at it you can see why so you get here you have to take subway line 1
to Toseong station and then from there take bus number 2 or 2-2. we went on a
weekday and it was extremely crowded so I can only imagine how crowded the
weekends are you can watch a full vlog of my trip to Gamcheon culture village on
my vlog channel. Day 2 visit the local markets
Jagalchi marked it in Nampo-dong is one of Korea's largest seafood markets
and it runs alongside the Busan Harbour the market really established itself
during the Korean War and it's run by these tough women called Jagalchi Ajummas
They do all the dirty work of cleaning and preparing the seafood and
have a really tough exterior if you walk through the market you can tell how hard
they work . They really a hustle and call out to you to buy their products
the western part of the market is dedicated to selling live seafood which
is called fresh and sold directly to consumers and you can watch as the fish
get scaled beheaded chopped up and dumped in a bucket of ice. the eastern part
of the market is dedicated to dried seafood and also there are many
restaurants that line the side of the market you can get a meal for about
5,000 Korean Won per person which will consist of fried fish that is likely no
longer fresh enough to sell anymore or you can pay a little more for things
like live octopus, fresh abalone, sea cucumber and other delicacies
adjacent to Jagalchi market there's a building where if you go to the top
floor you can get a really nice view of busan harbor and take some cute photos
Next to Jagalchi Market you'll find Gukje market. Gukje means international in korean and
following the korean war, refugees who fled to busan set up stalls in order to
make a living and this was the beginning of Gukje market. Gukje market is one
of Korea's largest markets and it's alleyways connect to smaller markets such as
Bupyeong market and Kkangtong market but it's really hard to tell where one
market begins and the other one ends you can look up to see the signs but it
really just kind of blends into one place. if you're a foodie this is a
really great place to try some of the foods that are unique to Busan like
Ssiat hotteok, busan's famous fish cakes and pork belly kimbap. the market sells
everything from kimchi to clothes, to suitcases to electronics items and home
appliances and it can be really overwhelming but it's also really
interesting. I definitely recommend walking through it
Haeundae beach is the most famous beach in Busan it has white sand and
shallow water which makes it a very popular place to visit in the summer
I've heard that although it's a public beach, hotels will put up umbrellas and
beach mats and actually rent out the spaces to people during the summer
apparently it gets really crowded during peak summer season which is the last
week of July to the first week of August so it's probably best to go during the
offseason. when we went in March the beach was completely empty. Dongbaekseom Island or
Camellia Island is an island located off of Haeundae Beach. although sediment has now
connected the island to the mainland it's still called an island. we went here
and I thought it was really beautiful it's just a really nice calm peaceful
place to go for a walk and you can see the Cameillia flowers blooming from winter to
spring they're really pretty. just on the shore from haeundae Beach
you'll find gwangalli Beach which is it's less glamorous cousin however this
Beach has a better view of a bridge and it's supposed to be really pretty at
nighttime. okay now some practical stuff for those of you who are thinking of
visiting Busan. number one getting around so in terms of getting around when we
visited Busan we use the subway system and the BUTI bus to get around the
BUTI bus is the Busan city tour bus and it can take you to all the major sites
in Busan it's a double-decker bus and some of them have open tops and some
don't there are four different lines and you
can go all over Busan for a fixed price getting on and off where you please
I believe that three of the lines are included in one fixed price and then the
the fourth line the Green Line is extra so the price for a ticket is 15,000
Korean won per person for adults and 8,000 for children 4 and up and that's a
one-day pass and it's unlimited so it's really I think an economical way to get
around Busan. you can also get a discount on the
tickets if you take the KTX. because we took the KTX to Busan from Seoul we
opted to stay at a hotel near Busan station so that we didn't have to lug
our luggage too far we didn't want to take a taxi because of the car seat
issue which is basically we try not to take taxis whenever possible because
it's not really for the kids since they're not in car
seats. there are a ton of hotels in the area but we decided to stay at this
place called Le Idea hotel. it wasn't that fancy but it seemed relatively
clean and into the job and it was less than a hundred dollars per night which
is a steal. when deciding where to stay, we were basically deciding between staying
near Busan station or staying at haeundae beach and we thought that haeundae
would be really nice because the kids could play in the sand and we could be
right next to our hotel so they could clean up when we needed to but
ultimately we decided to stay in near Busan station because number one, it was
close to the KTX. number two it was close to the BUTI bus stop which we planned on
using and number three it was close to the local markets which we knew we
wanted to visit. Busan station is also closer to Gamcheon culture village than
Haeundae beach. The beach is really nice but we didn't plan on spending a
ton of time there playing in the sand. To be quite honest if you're from a place
that has really nice beaches you probably won't be too impressed by the
Busan beaches. we figured if we wanted to book a beach trip we would do it at
another time. this trip was mostly just to get a nice overview of Busan, go to
the markets and do some of those touristy things that we wanted to do.
there are tons of other things to do in Busan
but we were only there for three days and two nights & I feel like we got a good
variety of things in there and I don't really feel like we missed anything big
or I don't feel the need to go back. when you're taking the KTX, which is the
Korean equivalent of the bullet train to Pusan from Seoul, you can save money by
buying a Korail pass. we traveled with a group of three adults so the pass was
102,000 KRW per person compared to the round-trip ticket price of 120 to
160 thousand Korean Won. the Korail pass is available to foreigners who are
visiting Korea and it's a pretty economical way to get around. The train
leaves from Yongsan station in Seoul (there's also trains that leave from Seoul station) and it takes about two and a half to three
hours to get there. also if you check the budget airlines like Busan air or Jeju Air
you may be able to get an even cheaper price than what you would pay on
the KTX. I think I've seen flights for as low as twenty-nine thousand won each way
so maybe you can get a ticket, or a roundtrip ticket for
60 bucks. Overall, I really loved Busan. I liked it a lot better than Seoul
actually. I feel that Busan is to LA as Seoul is to New York. So it's a lot more
laid-back and relaxed and it's near the beach and it just has a really nice vibe
to it. I also enjoyed hearing the Busan dialect which is really different from
the Korean that you hear in Seoul as well as in the United States. So if you
speak Korean or understand Korean then you might find this very interesting.
Culturally I thought that Busan was a really interesting place - it seems to
have been shaped a lot by the Korean War. I'm going to be also doing about Busan food
guide because I found that a lot of the things that we ate in Pusan were really
different from the kind of Korean food that you will find it in Seoul, so if you
are a foodie and you like trying new things then you definitely want to check
out that video. so anyway I hope you guys enjoyed this video and found it helpful.
leave me a comment and let me know if you would like to visit Busan sometime
and if you want to see a full vlog of my trip, I put one up on my vlog channel so
I will leave the link in the description box. I'll talk to you next time. bye!