I feel like I spent all day on a bus! Prepare to be RIVETED by all the flavors of public transport in Busan.
This morning I took it extra easy, because I’ve realized I simply don’t have that many things to do here. All the accounts I’d read online were very vocal about three days being the absolute minimum for Busan, due to all the different areas and how long it takes to travel between them, but now that I’m here I can see that they’re all accounting for a beach holiday, or at the very least a summer holiday, with a lot of plans being about hanging out at the beach, hiking in the mountains, and other stuff that is either out of season now or I wouldn’t want to do anyway.
When I did eventually get started, I decided to go to Hadeong Yonggungsa, a 14th-century temple built right on the shore. It’s aaaaall the way to the west, so I first had to take a bus for like forty minutes to get to Haeundae, Busan’s most famous beach. Once there, I saw with dismay that my next bus wouldn’t depart for another twenty minutes, so I changed plans and took a look around Haeundae first.
Like yesterday, it’s been blindingly sunny and hot all day, so in a way the beach kinda looks like it must in the summer, except there was nobody swimming and only scatterings of people walking up and down the beach avenue. It’s weird and eerie that there isn’t a single, solitary cloud in the sky, all day, not one, in November.
It was lovely to see the sea, this time less congested by monster freight ships, and the water was a healthy blue that looked clean, at least from the distance. Other than that, the massive skyscrapers all around do not make for a very charming backdrop for the beach, and neither do the empty snack bars that clearly rely on a seasonal clientele. I took a short walk before deciding the meager views were not worth the risk of heatstroke and had lunch at an Indian restaurant off the main Haeundae avenue. The portions looked small, but I was quite full by the time I finished! (This was just about the only time that I was attended by a Korean waitress who spoke flawless English. What a relief, to be able to respond with words and not just nod helplessly!)
On the way out, I bought myself a mango shake, in memory of my trip to Thailand and Cambodia where I got mango shakes everywhere I could, before I realized my grave mistake: I now had a plastic cup, straw and lid in a country with no public trash cans. From my Japanese experience I knew I might have to carry the empty cup with me the rest of the day!
I took a bus from Haeundae Station to Yonggungsa temple, and again that “direct” route took 50 minutes. If you look at the two points on the map, you’ll think I’m exaggerating.
Finally, after a short walk uphill and then downhill, and through a gauntlet of food stalls and souvenir stores, the winding path opened up and I found myself looking at the gorgeous Hadeong Yonggungsa temple.
The temple is historically significant in its own right, but what’s most attractive about it is its picturesque location, as it built on the rocky cliffs rising directly from the sea.
(This is when I FINALLY found a trash can and was able to throw away the damned cup.)
Although it looks small, there are in fact several separate areas to it, clinging to different sides of the cliff, so they all have great views of each other and present lots of photo opportunities. This is good for crowd control, too, because this is the one place that the Western tourists had found and came flocking to. So here’s where they were hiding! There is an arched bridge over the water, the main temple, where monks were chanting and beating some kind of percussion instrument, and an elevated platform with a statue of Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy.
The place is so beautiful that I didn’t even mind how crowded it was; after all, there was room to spread out a little bit and anyway people were pretty quiet and respectful (it is, after all, a revered place of worship for many visitors). Like I’ve said before on this blog, we have to get used to the idea that we share this world with people, and that most great sights are no longer a secret.
The sound of the waves, the sight of the ocean, and the beautiful melding of architecture and nature made the experience lovely. I sat down for a moment to drink it all in before I accepted I’d seen everything and headed out.
I suffered through a full hour’s bus ride this time, back the way I came and then a little beyond Haeundae, to alight next to the Busan Cinema Center, a spectacularly futuristic building that is used for the Busan International Film Festival, various exhibits I suppose, and also has its own built-in open-air auditorium for movie screenings! There was a poster for a movie showing dated just five days ago, so it must see regular use year-round.
I then crossed to the behemoth of a building that’s right next to the center: Shinsegae Centum City, allegedly the world’s largest department store. It is in fact an enormous mall linked to an enormous department store, so there’s shopping of all kinds. I think I have said before that I can’t abide department stores, but this being so huge, I wanted to see if there’s a “wow” view somewhere inside, and… not really? There are a couple of spots where you can see several floors above, but there’s no giant open space to really sell the enormity of it.
Don’t get me wrong, though: even if it doesn’t look it, it really is gigantic. Each floor is extensive and there are fourteen floors!
The only place I wanted to check out was the first basement, the food market. If you’ve been to Mitsukoshi in Tokyo (or if you’ve read about it on this blog!) then you already know what to expect: a vast expanse of food shops, selling every kind of food imaginable, for outrageous prices, in colorful packaging, ideal for gifts. There were shops for gimbap, macarons, waffles, biscuits, tea, fish cakes, seaweed, dried squid, Korean medicinal herbs, unidentified fried stuff on a stick, rice crackers, cakes, and I’m sure there was more than my brain can recall.
As pretty as everything was, I didn’t buy anything. There are in fact a couple of things I’d like to bring back home, like Boseong tea or kimchi, but I’m gonna try to buy those at Lotte Mart tomorrow, where hopefully I can find more “regular” brands than the high-end stuff at department stores.
And that was it for my day! To my indescribable relief, Shinsegae sits on its own subway stop, served by the same line as my apartment, so after so many hours wasted away in transit the metro ride back took just twenty minutes.
Now to think of what to do tomorrow: I think I only have Beomeosa left, from my sightseeing list, but it will also be my last day in Korea so I will also want to take some time to buy whatever I haven’t found yet and wrap up any loose ends!
This Is A Lake 