South Korea Day 1 - Busan

Sunday, 16 February 2014, my family took me to the airport. What I meant by my family is all of them. My big bro joked around: "Little princess will go, everyone wants to see her off" ^^ It really strengthened my image as the last and only daughter in front of others ^^ Anyway, thanks for your support, family ^^

After I arrived, I checked in together with my two cousin. Then we spent time to have a dinner at Bakso Ino. Everyone's talking about how spoiled I am ^^ and I, myself, still busy with my phone's bill.

Departure time... I was nervous with long and night flight. How can I sleep? Besides, I was also afraid of the cold weather. 

After 8 hours flight, on Monday, 17 February 2014 at 8.35 we arrived in Busan. We directly went to toilet to dress up with winter clothing, wash our face and brush our teeth. Then, we asked information center how to get to Angel Hotel with jumbo taxi and how much the fee is. We headed to Taxi stand and bargain with the driver. We agreed with 35.000 KRW / taxi from Gimhae to Angel Hotel. Fortunately, the driver knew where our hotel is.

Gimhae International Airport - hopefully our style is matched with Korean

Notes:

If you stay in Angel Hotel, but you don't want to take taxi, you can take Metro Station from Gimhae Int Airport Station to Sasang Station (3 stops), change to Line 2 to Seomyeon Station (8 stops).

Angel Hotel is really a recommended place to stay. It's not too expensive, but the location is strategic. In Indonesia, if I could say, the location looks like Pasar Baru - Jakarta, so anywhere you go is stores and restaurants. Angel Hotel is also located near Seomyeon Metro Station. 

simple map how to get to Angel Hotel

We dropped our baggage and asked the staff how to get to Taejongadae Resort, our first destination. Luckily, we asked them, otherwise we would spend more time if we trusted direction provided by website ^^ To go to Taejongdae Resort, we could take bus 88 near Seomyeon Station and we don't need to take that bus at Busan Station.

Before we continue our journey to Taejongdae Resort, we decided to have brunch at the restaurant near Angel Hotel. It's cheap, yeah at least cheaper than our budget for a meal. I ate Mandu for 2.500 KRW / portion and it's enough for me.

After we got enough energy, we continued our journey to Taejongdae Resort. We stopped by Seven Eleven to get T Money (card that can be used to pay bus ticket, metro ticket or even buy something at Seven Eleven). I recharged my T Money for 10.000 KRW (thanks to Angga for borrowing her TM oney, so I don't need to buy new card).

We took the bus no. 88 right a way. Taejongdae Resort is the last stop, so we could relax in the bus without thinking where we should stop. 

Taejongdae Resort -the wind was too strong, my body was freezing.

We arrived at lunch time and it's raining. The wind was too strong. We waited for Danubi Train around 30 minutes. The cost for Danubi Train is 4500 KRW / person. If I could compare with Indonesia, I would say that Danubi Train is the same with the car (or bus) we took to go around Taman Safari. Passenger can take off in every stop based on the course: Taejongsa Temple, Yeongdo Lighthouse, Observatory, Gumyeongsa Temple, Taewon Jagal Madang. But because it's too cold, we didn't take off anywhere ^^ So, if you ask my opinion about this resort, I'd say nothing memorable.

We continued our journey to Jagalchi Fish Market. It's a place where you can eat raw and rare seafood such as octopus. It's challenging to try, but I refused, because I'm afraid it would suck my tongue ~~ All is rare.. I never saw that kind of seafood. 

Note:
Take a bus to Busan Station, from Busan Station to Jagalchi Station (3 stops), Exit 10, turn right onto Jagalchi 3(sam)-gil Street, walk for 5min, then turn left to arrive at Jagalchi Market.

tried the bungeoppang in the winter was awesome ^^

all kind of seafood here 

Finally, we decided to eat grilled fish. At this place, we felt that the restaurant tricked us, because we actually wanted to order one big portion of grilled fish platter. But when the food came, they brought us two big portion of grilled fish platters. We confused, we tried to explain, but they said it was because we used two tables. They didn't want to take back the fish. So finally, we ate only fish without the rice. My friend's mom mad and didn't want to eat, she said she lost the mood. Beside grilled fish platter, we also ordered one bottle of soju. Honestly, I didn't like it and wouldn't try it again. My cousin finished it til they drunk ^^

our first and last soju... yak me no like it >_<

After we were full, we went to Yongdusan Park with Metro and alight in Nampo Station. Yongdusan Park is the location of Busan Tower. It's hard to reach this tower, and it's still raining. Busan people really can't speak English. They even said they didn't know where the tower is. After so much trying and asking, we finally found someone who can speak English quite well. She said that we only need to walk straight and we'll see an elevator in our right side.

Note:
From Jagalchi Station take Line 1 to Nampo Station (1 stop), Exit 1, walk 10 min. You will see escalator on your right.

Busan Tower in a very gloomy weather

OK, it's a very long escalator, four floor and not all escalator was working, so we need to climb up the elevator. Too tired... When we arrived, we looked around the tower and (of course) took some pictures ^^

Then, we continued our journey to next destination, which is Shinsegae Centum City - the biggest department store. It's easy to reach Shinsegae Centum City, because it's connected with Metro, which is Centum City Station. Yeah, we didn't plan to shop, but we wanted to see what the biggest department store looks like ^^

Note:
From Nampo Station take Line 1 to Seomyeon Station (8 stops), change to Line 2 to Centum City Station (13 stops), Exit 1, walk 100 M.

Shinsegae Centum City - it has a lot of floors right?

Shinsegae Centum City - they have a lot of cute cakes or meals

We continued to Gwangan Bridge, to see the beautiful bridge at night. Actually, I thought it's not a good choice, as we don't have good camera to catch the scenery. But, as it's mentioned in our schedule, we went there. We took metro and alighted at Gwangan Station. However, the bridge is nowhere to see... it looks like we need to take a long walk. So, we gave up, because the wind is too cold and we're really tired. We decided to end the night.

Our struggle didn't end up here... We can't find our hotel. The direction on the website was wrong. It said we need to alight at Jeonpo Station, exit 2, go straight 250m, turn left at the corner, go straight 220m, turn right, go straight for 50m to arrive at Hotel Angel on the left. But in reality, it's not like that. We're lost and the street was empty. We couldn't find anyone to ask about. We went to Seven Eleven to ask and of course to warm up our body. She couldn't speak English. Luckily, there's a nice customer there who's willing to help us, even when she couldn't speak English fluently. She gave us direction and even took us to show us directly. After she left us, we walked to the direction she gave. My traveling friends already yelled out and wanted to take taxi, because it's freaking cold. 

Actually, I, myself, wanted to give up too, but unfortunately there's no taxi and it's our first day, we didn't know where to stop the taxi. I was asking myself, could we stop taxi anywhere we want? Or is it the same with Singapore where we should stop taxi at Taxi Stop? Because we couldn't decide, we're just standing there, until we asked the pedestrian. She could speak English *finally* and she said the hotel is near from our location, we just need to walk for two more blocks. We walked, walked and walked.. the wind almost made us fly. After some time, we arrived safely at our hotel.

We checked in and we almost needed to pay more for additional people. So, I ended up the night debating that we booked the room for 3 people in the website ~.~ What a long long night...

Today's expenses per person:

- Jumbo Taxi Airport - Angel Hotel : 5.000 KRW

- Lunch (Mandu) : 2.500 KRW

- T Money : 10.000 KRW

- Danubi Train at Taejongdae Resort Park : 4.500 KRW

- Dinner (Grilled Fish at Jagalchi Fish Market) : 10.000 KRW

- Street Food (Odeng) : 4.300 KRW