Spending time in Busan, South Korea - Part 1

From Gyeongju we drove down to Busan. We had booked a hotel straight from the famous Haeundae beach and were glad to stay in one place for a few days without driving. It was a beautiful, sunny but very humid day so we headed straight for the beach. The waves were ok so I spotted some surfers as well.

We walked to the east side of the beach and as seen from Tiktok I wanted to try the sky capsule route that you could take with these cute cable car type of things. It was nice, but long and very over priced but it was clearly a tourist attraction for both foreign and local visitors. The ride took about 30 min and then we returned with another faster beach train. It was nice, but nothing special and if you are in a hurry, completely skippable.

We had been excited about Busan for a long time before arriving since it is a coastal beach city. On our first evening in Haeundae beach we had trouble trying to find a nice place to eat. As an after thought, maybe the best way would've been to stop at Haeundae Market and eat something there, but as we walked down the very busy main street we saw a lot of European style restaurants which we didn't feel like eating now.

In the evening we read a lot about the upcoming storm in Busan. When we had arrived to the hotel, the receptionist told us not to place anything in front of our windows as the typhoon was coming. Hinnamnor typhoon had originated as a very strong typhoon in the Philippine sea and Jeju Island and Busan were next on its path. The country had raised its emergency levels to the highest and the city started to get ready to welcome the typhoon Hinnamnor.

We downloaded an app that told us the emergency alerts in English and got food and water to our hotel room in case the typhoon lasted for longer. Our car was in a parking tower above ground indoors and the instructions were to stay inside because the wind and the flooding were the things to avoid.

Eventually Hinnamnor passed us during the night with lots of rain and wind and in the morning the sun was already shining and the streets were getting dryer. Luckily, the hurricane didn't cause any major damages and everyone was safe, though the people living on places with possible landslides were evacuated.

I'll write more about what we did in Busan on my next post.