South Korea & Taiwan Blog 5: Busan to Gyeongju
Day 9 – Saturday, 15 April Busan
Drizzly then cloudy 16ºC
Prelude: As a brief introduction to the Korean language, based on our experience, and to help with mental pronunciations as you read through these blogs, I offer the following:
the language is very phonetic, so tends to have a consistent pronounciations for letters.
Each character represents a syllable, and is made up of a combination of smaller characters; eg 경 is “Gyeong” and is made up of 3 smaller characters: ㄱ for ‘G’, ㅕfor ‘yeo’ and ㅇ for ‘ng’
when vowels are grouped together in the same syllable they are pronounced as being rolled together; eg Incheon is 2 syllables, “in” and “chon” ( in Korean it is 인천, each character representing a syllable ), not In-che-on as English speakers would assume. Seoul is another example, it is Soul not Se-oul.
G in Korean is a ‘hard’ G, as in Gate, not as in Gin
J is the soft G sound of Gin, or June
So we travel to 2 places with similar names in the next blogs; Gyeongju and Jeonju. Gyeongju has a hard, almost K sounding G at the start, and as it is written in Korean, 경주, is only 2 syllables; “Gyeong” and “ju”. Jeonju is 2 syllables ( 전주 ) with the J sounds as we have in English.
Those that are paying attention will notice that the 2nd Korean character for both Gyeongju and Jeonju are the same ( 주 ), reinforcing the phonetic nature of the language.
One last point of interest: Busan ( 부산 ) has the Korean letter ㅂ at the start, which is a blend of the letter B and P, or a very hard B sound, so sometimes Busan is written as Pusan
We got up at 7:30am, and checked on breakfast situation in hotel ( to be told the restaurant in the hotel had been closed since Covid!? ), so we went downstairs to Starbucks which was on the ground floor ( ie 1F ) of our building, had bacon and cheese toasties ( W 25000 ) then back upstairs to get organised.
Out at 9:30am, caught the subway on Line 1 to Toseong, walked up the street a little bit an caught No 2 mini bus up to Gamcheon Culture Village.
The Gamcheon Village was created by Busan city administrators in the 1920’s/1930’s to give port workers somewhere to live near the port. In 2009, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism carried out a public art-themed renovation effort to convert the village to a cultural hub. It called for art students, professional artists, and residents to maintain, repair, and "decorate" the village with art. It is now a major tourist attraction.
We bought map ( W2000 ), t shirt ( W10000 ) and A4 print ( W3000 ) at the information centre, then walked along the main street ( dodging selfie takers ), then up to observatory ( aka look out platform ), then carried on further along street. We eventually left the crowds behind with there selfie sticks, and followed a route down the hill, through narrow alleyways and down steep stairs )( and got lost a couple of times ) out at the bottom of the hill. The village is very cool with lot of quirky decoration and art installation scattered around the streets, but is still a ‘working’ area with people living there.
We caught the No 2-2 mini bus back up and over the hill back to Toseong Station. We had ‘morning tea’ at “Underbake” at 11:30am ( coffee, green tea and baked cheese cake ), then caught the subway to Nampo station to catch bus to Songdo Beach. We successfully caught the No 7 bus at 12:00pm, but we caught it in the wrong direction, so after 10 minutes we realised, jumped off the bus then caught the 7 in the other ( correct ) direction.
We got off at Songdo Beach at 12:45pm and walked along beach, and out on the oversea walkway, then into gondola station. Even though it was a cloudy and cool day it was quite busy along the beach area.
We bought 2 return tickets ( W17000 ea ) on the gondola ( “Busan Air Cruise” ) from Songdo Bay Station and then out across the bay to the station the other side ( Sky Park Station ), which took about 10 minutes. We grabbed lunch at some of the food stalls in the station building ( hotdog, croffle, and sausage and rice cakes – not all of them were enjoyed / eaten ). We walked down the hill to the suspension bridge out to a rock outcrop for a look, then back up and back on the gondola. It was a fun ride and a good way to see Songdo Bay and Busan beyond.
Off at the Songdo Bay Station and then walked back up the hill a little way to catch a bus back to Jagalchi Station, then back to the hotel on the subway. Time to put some washing on then down for a coffee at Starbucks, then put the washing into dryer ( the jet setting lifestyle… ).
We booked our upcoming leg of the trip from Gyeongju to Jeonju, via Osong on the KTX( Korea Train Express ) Train, and accommodation in Jeonju for 2 nights at the Best Western Plus. The train journey would be in 2 parts as there is no direct train; the 10:55am Gyeongju to Osong ( arriving at 12:11pm ), then the 1:27pm train from Osong to Jeonju ( arriving 2:15pm ). The 2 trains cost a combined W125000 / NZ$150.
We booked the trains for Korea through 12GoAsia, which worked well, and after printing the tickets for our Seoul to Busan train and realising that no one checks them ( very trusting ) we just had the email tickets from12GoAsia if we were asked for proof for the rest of the trip ( future me: we were never asked for tickets in Korea )
We headed down to bus stop at 6:15pm, caught the 141 bus out to Unchon ( near Dongbaek Station, near Haeundae Beach ). It was really interesting to travel above ground for a change and to see the pockets of high-rise buildings that makes up Busan. Busan is a city built in amongst lots of hills so has a feel of having many satellite ‘towns’ within the overall city.
We walked down to the water to shoot some tall buildings reflecting in the harbour then grabbed tea at “Finger and Chat” fish and chip restaurant ( W33000 for calamari and chips, and 2 beers ).
We caught the subway home, arriving at 9:15pm
Relaxed.
Thoughts on Busan: We enjoyed our time in Busan, but felt that was a much more business / industrial city than Seoul, and while it had some interesting locations to visit, including some stunning beaches, and a good feel to it, it wasn’t a city that held our interest for long. We felt that 1 full day and a couple of part days was enough for us to see what we wanted to see.
Day 10 – Sunday, 16 April Busan to Gyeongju
Cloudy in Busan 16ºC
Cloudy, then thunderstorms, then cool in Gyeongju 16ºC to 10ºC
We got up at 7:30am, got organised then downstairs for breakfast at Starbucks at 8:30am.
Mentions of Starbucks will be a theme through these blogs through both Korea and Taiwan; it is not that we went looking for them but, like 7 Elevens, they seemed to be everywhere and provided a known quantity when we needed a drink and a bite to eat ( normally the baked cheesecake ).
Back up to our hotel room to finish packing, then checked out at 9:00am. Downstairs then caught the subway to Busan Station. As we got the lift up out of the subway station ( the Busan Main Station subway is separate from the Main Train Station ) we met a guy from Australian heading for the his KTX train to Seoul ( not the same train as us ) so we chatted as we showed him the way to go between stations.
We waited in the main concourse for a few minutes for our train to show up on the board then down to platform 10, and all the way along to the back of the train in carriage 17 ( W36000 for 2nd class for ½ hour trip ). The train left at 10:20am and we spent most of the trip to Singyeoungju Station ( the KTX station serving Geongju ) in tunnels. We arrived on time at 10:53am.
Note: Sin in the name of the station means New, so New Gyeongju Station
Additional Note: in Taiwan the same word with the same mean is spelt Xin
We got off the train then out to the bus stop and got on a No 50 bus straight away to Gyeongju. Due to the nature of building high speed rail line a lot of the stations are not in or near the cities they serve. So we had a 20 minute ride into town, then off the bus and found our Hanok accommodation down a side street ( Taejon-ro 700beon-gill !! ), met the owner / cleaner who said our room wouldn’t be ready until 3pm, and so we left our bags there and walked to find a drink.
Stopped for a smoothie and a rest, then on to the burial mounds that Gyeoungju is famous for.
These mounds ( made from a timber structure covered with rock and soil ) are the burial chambers for Kings from the Joseon Dynasty. We walked around some of the mounds in the Noseodong area, and went into the reconstruction of one of the burial mounds ( Geumgwanchong Mound ) displayed inside a massive dome shaped building. This mound had been ‘excavated’ by the Japanese when they occupied Korea in the early 1900’s; effectively destroying the mound and removing the treasures within.
We walked across the road to more mounds in the Tumuli-gongwon Park ( this had a W3000 /$3.50 fee ea ) and walked around those. This area is a lot more park like than the Noseodong area with ponds and lots of trees between the mounds ( and a lot more people / selfie takers ).
After walking through the park we came out the other ( south ) end of this area at 1:30pm, walked through the narrow streets filled with traffic heading to the carpark for the mounds, then had lunch at a private room café ( W21000 for a platter of meats/fruit etc and a private Hanok style room for 1 hour).
After lunch we walked to the main tourist street of town ( Poseok-ro ) for a bit, until the crowds of people and the souvenir / photobooth / snack shops became too much, then walked back to our Hanok at 2:30pm.
Our room was ready so went in and we lay down for a bit, and might have had a snooze. Our room consisted of a simple wooden floored space ( with underfloor heating ) and an ensuite, with a traditional sleeping mattress and pillows ( and a TV and wifi ). We paid W73000 / NZ$85 for 1 night including breakfast.
We headed out at 6pm and walked back to the mounds in Noseodong for photos in the cooler air, found a Japanese restaurant in town ( W 21500 for ramen meal, pork cutlet meal and beer ), then walked back to our accommodation at 9:00pm via a supermarket to grab some supplies.