Coastal sights of Busan

Oryukdo Skywalk

I had made arrangements to meet an old university friend at Oryukdo Skywalk at 0945 today.  As I had kept somewhat on New Zealand time, I took breakfast at 0645 and was on the bus at 0740.  The ride took about an hour before getting dropped at the last stop in front of a large complex of high-rise apartments.

I had an hour to kill so I explored the short hillside walks to the left (north) of the actual Skywalk.  If I hadn’t been used to rugged coastlines like this from New Zealand, I’d describe it as stunning.  Had the weather been sunnier, it would probably been even better.  It surprises me that it’s so much cooler here at the start of summer, at the same latitude as the tip of New Zealand’s North Island.  But I do know that Korea is a lot more extreme in its climate.

The area here was landscaped and included a pond with reeds which was home to lots of croaking frogs.  From a signboard, I realised that Busan has many walking tracks on its hillslopes.  From here, one could walk to Haeundae in the north of Busan Station in the south.  From one end to the other, it is over 30km.  And that’s only the one track that I now know about.

As for the actual Skybridge, it wasn’t that great.  It was just a glass jetty jutting out of the cliff.  Make that slightly scratched glass with some cosmetic rust streaks here and there.  Looking down at the rocks and water was no big deal for me.  Everyone is obliged to wear overshoes to avoid scratching the glass further.

Some spots at Oryokdu look out across the bay to the famous Haeundae Beach popularised by Korean TV series.

Derek arrived on-the-dot and pointed a few places out to me.  There were some canopies below us where elderly women in their 70s would go out in the mornings to dive and catch seafood for sale there.  People would grill them and have soju as accompaniment for breakfast.

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Pukyong University & UN Memorial

From Oryukdo, we bussed to Pukyong University where he is a drama professor.  While he had a 50 min Zoom lecture, I took a walk and decided a little late to go to the UN Memorial.  As I was running out of time before I had to meet up with him again at 1155, I could only look at the memorial from afar.

We had lunch at a Korean BBQ place just outside campus.  He chose pork which came with condiments (awesome ssamjang) and salad leaves for wrapping up.  As he paid for lunch, I paid for coffee and cream puff afterwards at a nearby café.

Over both lunch and coffee, I gained a deeper insight into Korea.  Like Japan, mental health and suicide is a big issue.  There’s a lot of pressure to conform, achieve, look good etc.

Songdo Cable Car

It was about 1400 when I left the café, taking the metro to Jagalchi where I changed to a bus to Songdo Beach.  Here I walked on the waterfront, admiring the white sand and the bulldozer that was grading it, to the cable car.

The cable car, or Busan Air Cruise, is a short (maybe 10 min) cable car from Songdo to Amnam Park.  The view of the city, the beach and the sea was awesome.  And I saw more walking tracks.  I did a cursory walk at the far end and returned quite quickly.

People who paid for the extra to have a glass-floored cable car had to queue as it was the more popular option.  I don’t think one sees much more.  The view is more of the surroundings rather than straight down.

As it was already after 1600, I debated as to whether I would go to Taejongdae Resort Park.  The bus would take over an hour.  Combined with the time spent there and another hour to return to the hotel, it would probably be close to 2000 by the time I got to my room.

Having heard from Derek that taxis are reasonable, I hopped into one and the 20 min ride to Taejongdae only cost me KRW10000.

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Taejongdae Park

The park consists of several sights or viewpoints on a walkable loop road.  As I was running out of interest, I paid KRW3000 for the toy train ride that did the route.

The first stop on the train was an observatory where we looked down at an awesome cliff and the sea.  Taejongdae is a popular place for suicide.  Apparently, people leave their shoes before they jump.  Not sure if this is a courtesy thing or so that people will know to come for their bodies.  There’s supposed to be signage telling people to reconsider jumping but I didn’t notice them; I had taken photos of various signs and put them through Google Translate.

It was only a short walk to the next stop, which is the lighthouse.  The modern building wasn’t to my taste.  There was also a circular monument, with a pointy thing.  The view here was just as good as the observatory.

It was a slightly further walk to the last stop which is the Taejongsa temple.  It was a small building housing a golden Buddha.  Some people were praying inside.

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At this point, I was ready to finish my day.  Back on the loop road, there was no obvious stopping place for the toy train.  I waited at a possible place but when the train eventually turned up, it didn’t stop.  I must have somehow missed the official stop when I walked off-the-road between sights.

It wasn’t too much of an effort to walk downhill back to the park office area and then to the exit.  So, I only used one ride of the toy train ticket but it was the longer ride.

Having confirmed earlier that the taxis are affordable here, I took one back to my hotel at Busan Station.  The 25 min ride cost about KRW12000.

For dinner I had a surprisingly nice meal at a chain restaurant.  It was a spicy pork, octopus and prawn stirfry with rice, served with a spicy soup.  It was a pleasant way to wrap up my short stay in Korea as I will hopefully fly to Singapore tomorrow on standby.