South Korea 2017 - Busan Gamcheon Culture Village 부산 감천문화마을

Gamcheon Village began as a refugee village in the 1950s. In 2015, local artists and villagers gathered began to revive the historical value of Gamcheon "Village Art Project" and soon this attracted various attention of businesses and tourists. As we know it today, Gamcheon is Korea's Santorini.

We had our hotel concierge write down the name of Gamcheon in hangul as we are taking the cab there from Haeundae. Thankfully, it was easily understood and we arrived there safely. There are also buses going up to the vilage but we were just too lazy to figure that out. It was pretty amazing on how the transports were able to manouvre up the steep slopes towards the village.

entrance to Gamcheon Cultural Village

Entrance is free. To get an English map of the area, simply walk into the tourist information centre located right at the entrance of the village. The price of ₩2000 will get you a map and a postcard. There are toilets located at the entrance as well as within the village. The map has demarkation for these as well. But do note that some of the toilets are located at quite a steep slope!

bus stop near the entrance

if you don't want to get the map...

What do foodies do when they go sight-seeing? Inevitably, we gravitated towards the food. We know we've been watching too many kdramas so much so that corn dog became one of our to-try items.

corn dogs and skewers

Corn dog is American food, similar to budae jigae which is also a remnants of that era and has become part of the food culture in South Korea. Corn dog is sausage battered with lotsa bread crumbs and flour and deep fried. After which it is drizzled with ketchup. I think kids would like this more.

corn dog with ketchup

steamed octopus

The village was easily walkable and plenty to see. Outside of the toilet, there was an elderly lady with a Ppopgi cart. 뽑기 (ppopgi) is an old-fashioned sugar korean candy. You'll get a pin to draw on the sides of the melted sugar and if you are able to do it without breaking the candy, then you can have another candy for free.

Ppopgi 뽑기 seller

As with any other tourist attractions, there are plenty of photo-op spots for Instagram worthy shots. We were there around noon, and while there are many tourists, the place was still quite comfortable to walk around.

behind-the-scenes

cafe with art installation at its rooftop

There are many nooks and corners to be explored as well but do watch your steps.

downwards

Soon, we came by a small cafe and decided to have some snacks. Downstairs sells knick-knacks and handmade accessories. It was more of a dessert cafe with traditional desserts such as red bean or pumpkin porridge, mochi and cold drinks.

cafe cum retail

It is semi self-service styled so order at the cashier and make payment. For items that needed to wait, the staff will bring it to you. There are seatings both downstairs and upstairs. Washroom is at the rooftop though.

souvenirs

lemonades, red bean porridge and choco-pie

so huge!

The rooftop view was superb. One could see those colourful houses from this cafe.

rooftop view

For the dessert, I'd recommend the hoobak juk or pumpkin porridge. So yums. Didn't like the red bean one because there is gui-pi in it.

very nice pumpkin porridge (dessert)

After resting our feet, we walked somemore to find The Little Prince.

ice-cream looks good but we've had our dessert

poop bread?

OOTD spot

ahh, we are getting near

There is a photography spot to take your photo with Little Prince. But it actually look kinda dangerous as one would dangle their feet while sitting one the edge.

queuing up for Little Prince photo-op

Here is what the people are queuing up for:

one could sit beside the figurines and take photo

taken near Little Prince photo spot

Was actually feeling quite famished by the time we stop for lunch. Had our food at a place called 'The Plate'. A British-esque place. More about that in the food blog.

Then, of course, we needed to exit the Village before everyone else starts to leave as well. But before that, some snacks, again!

물방울 떡 raindrop cake

물방울 떡 strawberry and mango flavour

All in all, Gamcheon Culture Village is worth a visit if you're in Busan! Allocate about 2 to 3 hours for sightseeing in the village.

Gamcheon Culture Village

Website: http://www.gamcheon.or.kr/

South Korea 2017 - MS Hotel Haeundae

So, I decided to stay for a night at Haeundae Beach. Why not since I was already in Busan, right? Found a hotel via Agoda that seemed pretty near to the beach so on my last night in Busan, I transferred hotel to the beach. Sounds good but in reality, it was really tiring to move from one place to another.

Took a cab from Busan station to Haeundae beach. It wasn't very expensive, maybe about  ₩18000 for a 20 minutes ride.

on the way to Haeundae~

Keep a lookout for the hotel signage when reaching Haeundae SEA Life. It would be at the opposite direction. The cab will make a u-turn and stop somewhere below that building. The hotel lobby is at the 7th floor, so need to take the elevator up.

MS Hotel shares the same building with NURI Hotel

It was rather early when I reached at about 1040am. Enquired from the staff if I could check-in early and coincidentally, one room was available albeit a smaller room and it was still undergoing cleaning services. Waited for about 15 minutes and was given the key to the room.

view from lobby

hotel lobby

to the room

double room with seaview

wardrobe, tv, kettle, washroom

ooh, the mini fridge is in here

maxim coffee is provided, good

bathroom, ok

I liked it that they provided slippers to the bathroom as well as room slippers. The power socket were rather loose though. Hard to charge the devices if they keep falling off. Also love it that they provided facial wash in sachets form. Beats anything that says body and face wash.

facial wash

view from room

beach area (view from room)

At night, there will be people lighting up fireworks by the beach. So romantic hor? Wonder if Sentosa beach-goers do that too?

There is a 7-Eleven downstairs so it was rather convenient. Which is good because it is not the norm in South Korea for singles to be out dining alone, especially girls.

hotel signage

night view

plenty of western restaurants nearby 

During the daytime, we went out and explored Gamcheon Village. Watch out for the blog in the next post!

Meanwhile, breakfast was instant noodles from the convenience store downstairs. They got ramen eggs as well so that'll do as the side dish for the noodles. So full!

breakfast from convenience store

South Korea 2017 - Busan 1 Oct to 4 Oct (4 days 3 nights) | Jagalchi Market

For the first 2 nights, I stayed close to Busan KTX station at Almond Hotel. Spent $133.36 for 2 nights for a Business Room with no breakfast. The hotel was just a short 5 minutes walk from the KTX station. There's a stretch of pojangmacha (food tents) by the roadside outside of the hotel during the night time but I didn't try.

Business Room

fancy a bathtub next to the bed?

One noticeable thing about Almond Hotel business room is that the bathtub is right smack in the middle of the room. Like a studio. Luckily, there's still some privacy in the bathroom.

bathtub in the room

The room has mosquito during the night and no wonder there's an insect spray can in the room. But not sure why they placed it next to the kettle!

bathroom

One of the places that we visited while in Busan, was the Jagalchi Market. To get there, simply take the train to Jagalchi. The market is just a few minutes walk from the station.

fruit stalls on the way to Jagalchi

fish cake shop

salted fish

Plenty of things to see when we were walking towards the market entrance. Sellers hawking their wares from fruits to salted fish. If you are interested in fish cakes, there is a shop that sells it and having soupy fish oden was pretty good on a chilly morning.

oden snacks before lunch

towards the market

One will be greeted by tanks after tanks of fresh live seafood. Crabs, lobsters, eels, fishes, you name it, they have it.

huge hugs crabs and lobsters

seafood shop cum restaurant

While we were enjoying the lively atmosphere of the market, we were also looking out for our lunch/brunch venue. Many shops have signages that claimed visits from TV stations. How to choose?!

We enquired with the seller and it seemed that they are not keen to cook seafood purchased from other shops (understandably). Only if they are not selling that particular seafood, then they might cook it for you to eat at their shop provided you also order other things from them. Most of the independent shops (without restaurant) sells the seafood for you to take home.

octopus

flat fish, oysters

We saw some huge ass seahum (cockles)! Amazing. The seaworms look intimidating though. Don't know how to eat these things.

sea worm and seahum (cockles)

Eventually, we settled for lunch at Chungmu Hoetjip 충무횟집, a restaurant in Jagalchi Market. We had seafood pancake, grilled clams, grilled rockfish and eel, marinated raw crabs and a small bottle of plum wine.

Chungmu Hoetjip

delicious seafood

The rockfish was really delicious. Loved the marinated crabs but I preferred the one at Ganjang Gaejang alley. The side dishes were plenty and just love the overall dining experience. We spent about $60 per pax for this meal.