Life in Korea: Holiday in Busan

For Spring Break in 2009, we decided to visit Busan (second largest city in Korea). Busan is on the southeastern tip of Korea and is one of the few parts of Korea untouched (physically by the war). It is also far enough away that the beaches and sea shore in the area are, unlike Seoul, not covered with barb wire and sprinkled with watch towers and check points. We spent 3 days in the Haeundae Beach area (the most popular beach in Korea). While it was not warm enough to swim or get a tan, it was a great get away from Seoul and we had a blast.

Josh in front of the KTX high speed train we rode from Seoul to Busan. Our top speed was around 320 KPH (about 200 MPH) and the ride was smooth as silk. Wish the US would get some of these. Very cool.

View from our Novotel hotel room on Haeundae Beach in Busan. This was in the early spring and obviously not too crowded.

This is a wall in the Haeundae Beach tourism center next to the hotel. The photo is of July 2008 when residents set the Guinness Book Record for most beach umbrellas on a beach. There are over 12000 umbrellas on the beach in the photo and over 600,000 people. The beach is just over a mile long.

A lone fisherman surf fishing on the beach one morning. Obviously, not the day any world records were set.

Sarah and Josh (left) standing on Haeundae beach.

Sarah and Josh in front of a pagoda on Dongbaekseom Island (really a small peninsula) during a hike we took from the hotel.

The Nurimaru APEC House on Dongbaekseom Island. The building was constructed for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in 2005. It's a beautiful complex...and has never been used for anything else since...crazy. The building is preserved as it stood at the end of the conference. The second floor is a large circular meeting room with the seats for all the world leaders (George W. Bush attended for the US). Gwangan Daegyo Bridge is in the background. The suspension bridge and hilly streets lead to Busan being referred to as the San Francisco of Asia (also said about Seoul - Korean's like San Francisco).

The rocky coast of Dongbaekseom Island looking back to towards the hotel.

On Day 2 of our visit we took a short boat ride to the Oryukdo Islets.

Josh on the sundeck of our day cruise. He loved it up here but not very warm.

A young Korean couple gave Josh a bag of chips to feed the gulls.Koreans love Josh.

Josh and Sarah hanging over the rail on our day cruise.

Oryukdo Islets light house. Highlight of our little cruise. Oryukdo means "five to six Islets". We only counted 3. People say that at low tide 2 more poke out of the water.  Nobody has ever seen #6.  Go figure.

Oryukdo Islets light house with the mainland not far behind. Sky scrapers are never far from anything in Korea. Even islands.

Oryukdo Islets on the way back to shore.  Only the lighthouse island is inhabited.

On day 3 we visited the Busan Aquarium.

Busan Aquarium had an Aquarium Art theme going as part of a tie into the Busan Art Museum. Here the kids pose with the Mona Lisa Shark.

Sarah in a bubble. The kids could climb into this bubble dome and see the aquarium from a fish's point of view. And Sarah has learned the Korean knack for never having a picture taken without throwing up a peace sign.

The Aquarium Art theme's piece de resistance. A supposed take off on the Manneken Pis in Brussels all the children loved this one. Ah, Korea.