Last weekend, it was a long weekend in South Korea. Memorial Day, I believe. Whatever day it was, it meant I had a three day vacation, and the weather was amazing.
On Saturday, as my friend Alyssa and I were heading down to Suwon to visit a friend for dinner, I thought out loud, “Wouldn’t it be fun to just get on a train and go to some random city?”
One look at each other and we knew what we’d be doing on Sunday.
The original plan was to go to Gyeongju, which is filled with temples and old things and is like a living museum. I planned out the trip, and we got to Seoul station bright and early, asking for a ticket to Gyeongju. We SHOULD have asked for a ticket to Singyeongju, not Gyeongju. In doing that, we confused out ticket lady, she said we couldn’t get to Gyeongju from Seoul station. So we decided to go to Busan instead!
The main reason we didn’t plan to go to Busan right away is because we’d already planned to go there from the 17-19th for an epic weekend of swimming. But when opportunity strikes, and has a beach, we’ll take it.
We got into Busan station at around noon. I realized the second I got into Busan just how much I had fallen in love with the city on my last trip there. I LOVE Busan. It feels like Osaka, in Japan. Very chill, close to the ocean, with it’s own breed of insanity and strange accent. We managed to hop over onto the subway easily enough, and half an hour later or so, we were at Haeundae Beach. Along with every other foreigner in Korea, it would seem.
The beach was PACKED. There were SO many foreigners, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’m strange in that I don’t really take comfort in being in places filled with foreigners. I avoid Itaewon, and normally, a bar with more than 5 foreigners is enough for me to go to a different place. Don’t ask why I feel like that, I don’t entirely understand. I think it’s more to do with, if I moved to South Korea, I’d like to get to know South Koreans.But, despite the insane crowds, we had a really fun time.
Trying to find food was a disaster though. The town of Haeundae was madness, and there were queues at every restaurant. Alyssa needs a gluten free diet, which also makes things difficult. We eventually ended up at The Wolfhound Pub, an amazing pub in both Seoul and Busan that serve legit British pub food. I had fish and chips and was a happy camper.
For the rest of the day, we just chilled at the beach until we realized we needed to get home. We took the long bus back to Busan station, and had a moment of panic when almost all the trains were sold out. We managed to get the guy working to find us two tickets, and we were on our way home.
Randomly travelling to Busan might be one of the highlights of my summer so far. I had a lot of fun, and the impulsiveness of it is what made it so fun.