Our cruise stops in Busan today! It will be our only South Korea stop but it’s one we are all excited to explore since none of us have visited before. After disembarking our ship and clearing Korean customs and Immigration we hop into an uber and head to BIFF Square. It’s a popular cultural street that celebrates Korea’s film industry. It’s also home to the Busan International Film Festival and is considered to be one of the top film festivals in Asia! We walk through the square and eventually into the surrounding areas as well. Since we arrive pretty early, many of the vendors are still setting up.
Bupyeong Kkangtong Market
Eventually we happen upon Bupyeong Kkangtong Market. It’s a large covered market with all manner of stalls that sell things from clothing to premium spirits. Also inside the market are various food stalls selling all manner of delicious Korean street foods. After a little bit of walking we first stop at a small hand made dumpling store to try a few of their steamed dumplings. A few stalls over is a Tteokbokki stand which we proceed to order a small bowl of. It’s all very delicious and our family shares nibbling on the different offerings!
Bubu Coffee
Since there isn’t much seating in the market, we start looking for a coffee shop to take a break in. We find this in the form of Bubu Coffee. It’s a lovely multi level coffee shop that has a very positive and trendy vibe. There are several “floors” with seating but every spot still feels uniquely intimate. Our family orders different coffees along with several slices of cake that are on display. The coffee is delicious and the cakes are equally as tasty. You can tell that the couple that run this shop clearly love coffee and very much enjoy what they are doing. There is a lot of effort put into the shop and I would easily recommend it to anyone that is visiting Busan.
Busan
After coffee, we wander around the neighbourhood and take in some of the very cool shopping streets Busan has to offer. They have some really interesting stores and even some that look eerily similar to stores we are familiar with in North America! There is also a lot of cool street decorations that line different streets.
At one point a particular pizza shop or rather pizza shops (plural) catches our eye. It’s not just that the same pizza shop looks to have multiple locations on a single city block, but that its very overtly religious as well! It’s not a combination I would expect when it comes to pizza but every single one of their locations appear to be quite busy. So they are clearly a good and popular (and unique) pizza chain! After our trip, I did a little research and discover that this is Lee Jaemo Pizza. It’s a popular pizza shop that’s been in business for thirty years. I am already regretful that our family didn’t have the appetite for pizza at the time. However, I now hope to come back and give this place a try!
Busan Tower
After a little more walking we happen upon the escalators that take you up to Busan Tower. Busan Tower sits atop a hill and overlooks the Busan harbour. Surrounding the tower is Yongdusan park. While we didn’t have a desire to go to the top of the tower, the park on the hill and the views were already pretty enough for us. One oddity is that in order to get to the park, there is a series of escalators you can take. It makes ascending the hill easy. However, when we are ready to leave we notice that there aren’t any escalators that would help us descend! Instead we would need to make our way down on our own power over several flights of stairs and sloping pathways. It’s something to keep note of if you don’t have transportation and may have members in your party with mobility issues.
Lotte Mall
After descending from Busan Tower, we head to Lotte Gwangbok Store. This is a large mall beside the water. One of the standout features of the mall is the Aquatique Show water feature. It is the world’s largest and indoor water show. Unfortunately though during our visit, it is closed for maintenance. But even just looking at it gives you an appreciation for how cool it could be had it been operating. The mall itself has up to thirteen floors and has very cool food and shopping options.
Mall Rooftop Garden and Observatory
A cool feature of this mall is its 11th floor rooftop garden, and its 13th floor observatory. When you arrive on the 11th floor, you can walk outside to see a really well kept green space atop the mall. There’s a small post office at the top where you can mail a post card from. Both the Sister and I take the time to send ourselves postcards and I can safely say that at the time of writing this post, the postcard has arrived!
After exploring the garden, you can then take an elevator, or set of stairs to one of two observatories on the 13th floor. Since this mall is right on the water, it makes for some great views of Busan and the port of Busan. Maybe its because we’re tourists, but its practically empty up top and I wonder why its not more popular! Our family takes some time taking in the views and enjoying the ocean breeze before heading back down into the mall.
Lotte Mall Lunch
For lunch we head to the 10th floor of the mall. There are a series of sit down restaurants on this floor and we decide to stop into one of the Korean restaurants. Unfortunately, I’m not able to get a website for this restaurant but the best I can find is this Google Map Link. Our family orders several traditional Korean dishes like tofu soup, pork bone soup and bibimbap. They also have a special for a whole fried fish which we all thought was very tasty!
Busan Port
After lunch, we make our way back to the port since its an early set sail time. We arrive back in time to catch some of the final festivities before reboarding our ship. We catch a final glimpse of the beautiful Busan harbour before setting back out to sea.
And once back onboard, we once again head back to our normal post excursion routine of heading to the games room and playing games together as a family!
The next few days will be a combination of a two day port stop in Shanghai and a series of sea days before we end our cruise in Hong Kong. Our family is looking forward to the China portion of the trip since Shanghai is where Papa Minion grew up and Hong Kong is where Mama Minion grew up!