We traveled to Korea from September 25 to October 5, visiting Busan, Jeju, and Seoul Hongdae.
Flight to Korea
I booked a Burbank-Salt Lake City-Incheon one-way flight on Delta One using 130,000 Delta miles per person, using a recent 90k Delta Business Gold sign-up bonus plus 35k Amex points transferred to top it off. We wanted to get to Busan, but including Busan in the itinerary bumped the price to ~160k, which I felt was too much. Instead, I booked a separate Gimpo-Pusan Korean Air flight, in domestic business class even though it’s just a 50 minute flight, to ease the fatigue after the lengthy 20-hour travel day. I used 15k Virgin miles per person for this flight. I originally wanted to book ICN-PUS but ICN domestic flights are reserved for international connections only, and since I had a split ticket, I wasn’t able to use ICN – I had to go to GMP airport instead. I had the option of a 5:30pm flight and 7:30pm flight, and chose 7:30pm to give us enough time. Unfortunately this meant that even though we were arriving in Seoul at 3:20pm, we would still be traveling to Pusan until 9:15pm. I hoped maybe we could change our flight to the 5:30pm if we arrived to GMP early enough.
We arrived in Incheon airport at 3pm. Reflecting on our lessons from last year, this time we went straight to the immigration line, getting there before the crowds and possibly saving us 30 minutes of waiting in line. After 50 minutes on the AREX train, we arrived in Gimpo airport at 4:50pm and asked at the Korean Air desk whether we could change our flights. After some back and forth, the agent offered purchasing the 5:30pm flight in economy for $65 per person, and getting us a refund for the 7:30pm flight. Ugh.. this meant suddenly spending $130 for a 2-hour adjustment. We decided to just stick with the original flight.
Our flight to busan was on an ancient narrowbody Korean Air airplane. I remember its blue background flight status display screen. When we were flying to Chile in 1990, I just stared at that screen all day, during the two 12 hours flights.
Mom came pick us up at the airport with grandma and uncle and dropped us off at our hotel in the central district in downtown Busan. Our whole family was shocked to see a super well lit and still fairly transited downtown at 9pm. They don’t come to downtown often.
We checked in at the hotel, and immediately headed out to eat street food. Unfortunately most street vendors were wrapping up at 8pm – there were few vendors left, and even most traditional restaurants were closed already. I tried to withdraw cash from the ATM at a convenience store, but I got an error message. So we went to a fried chicken place that was still open, and the food was very meh.
Hinyeoul Culture Village
Next day on Friday, I had my usual sleeping difficulties and was up around 4am. Eventually at 6am I was up and my rustling woke up Christine as well. We searched for local restaurants on Naver Maps and found a couple of spots running 24/7. We had Gamjatang for breakfast at 7am, and then rested at the hotel. I recently got into a PC rogue-like game called “Brotato”, and I played this game at every break during our trip. You could say that this was a “Brotato Trip” for me.
At 10am, we took the city bus to Hinyeoul Culture Village. Busan had a strange, unexpected shift in its tourism scene in the past 20 years. There were many extreme poverty neighborhoods in Busan, mostly up in the hills, where people lived in cramped conditions and with bare minimum infrastructure. Then there was a bit of an art-scene revival, and the areas became a bit of a hipster go-to place. And then it became a tourist hotspot. So it’s a form of poverty tourism.. in a quickly gentrifying neighborhood filled with coffeeshops in every corner. So weird.
The views were spectacular and the coffeeshops were very nice – this would be what Koreans call “vibes cafe” (감성카페). The cafe had no one inside. We were the only visitors at 11am. We got a latte with some pretentious name. The second floor had a gian projector-lid ocean scene playing on repeat on the wall, and some other pretentious decorations. It had an opening to a third floor, but the stairs to it were the extreme Korean tall stairs. Each step was like 5 inch deep and 10 inch tall.
On our way back, we checked out the Jagalchi fish market. From what I sparsely remember in the 90’s, this place was just a big tented place with endless fish and seafood merchants. Now it’s a 4-story building, with the merchants in the first floor, restaurants in the second floor where they cook what you picked, and office and storage space in the upper floors. In the north entrance I also saw a labor union office in a weird high location that oversees the market space.
For lunch we had the live dokdo shrimp. The restaurant was very empty. The shrimp was delicious and they were alive until the restaurant staff broke off their heads in front of us. But t was pretty expensive and we got very little food at the end of the day. I think we got ripped off.
On Saturday, we took the taxi to our next hotel, located closer to grandma’s apartment. The taxi took us through the Busan Harbor Bridge. That bridge is very tall (to allow for ships to pass underneath) and you go up the bridge through an endless single lane rollercoaster ramp. Scary!
On Saturday we gathered at grandma’s apartment and celebrated dad’s birthday.
On Sunday we found a bagel place near Gwangan station that makes the tastiest breads. It was amazing. And we went to Busanjin Church with family for sunday service.
Jeju Island
On Monday, we took off to Jeju Island. During the Air Busan flight to Jeju, I found it unique how good looking one of their male flight attendants were. And for some reason, the bassinet wall (that separates the crew jumpseat from the passenger cabin) had a little round “window” on it, so we could still see him, facing us and seated in the jumpseat.
We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Jeju and used a Club Access Award to get us free breakfast and dinner. Both their breakfast and dinner were pretty substantial. We had about 4 different hot dishes each day. We had a Jeju black pork belly the day we arrived, but other than that, we just ended up having breakfast and dinner every day at the hotel. We were missing out on the more unusual regional dishes of the area, but the food was good and also the path of least resistance.
When staying in Jeju, you can either stay in Jeju city in the north, closer to shopping, restaurants and the airport, or in Seogwipo city in the south, closer to nature. I thought we had travel destinations both north and south. During our two full days in Jeju, however, we ended up going only to the south.
On Tuesday, we went to Songak mountain. We took the bus south to a coffeeshop, and from there called a taxi to take us to the mountain. The road to the mountain was very unique. We went through single lane partially dirt roads, up and down rolling hills, and many farms. We started walking around the Songak mountain hiking path, initially thinking we would walk a mile or so and come back. We changed our mind and ended up making the entire 3-mile route around the mountain. The views were nice with cliffs everywhere and giant spider webs. We tried to get the spiders to react by throwing pine cones at the webs. But I kept missing and the spiders just stayed put in the middle.
We went a seafood place that Christine had seen on Facebook reels (회양과국수군 제주산방산점). We couldn’t find it. It didn’t.. seem to exist? We settled for another seafood place nearby and an assortment of shrimps, clams, and hwe. We tried out their meme hats. That restaurant was so empty. Weird.
We visited the Osulloc Tea Museum. We walked around but the place mostly seemed.. like a souvenirs store. There wasn’t much of a “museum” going on here. We grabbed some of their teas and cakes and returned. We tried to take the bus, but the bus did not come at the expected time slot as shown on Naver Maps. After waiting 15 minutes, we just took the taxi back to the hotel. We chilled in the pool the rest of the afternoon.
Jeju Water World: Dumpster Fire
On Wednesday, we decided to go to Seogwipo for the traditional market experience. I looked at the route and threw in a tourist spot called “Jeju Water World” into the itinerary that day. The pictures looked a bit cool. That was a big mistake. We took the bus to Jeju Water World.
Jeju Water World.. was quite something. It’s located inside the World Cup Stadium in Jeju, a few miles from Seogwipo. From beginning to end, it’s very clearly a slightly modified classic Korean public bath/spa. They have the shoe changing spots, the bath area, etc. And they flooded the entire facility with shallow water to connect it all with water. We were moving from one bath area to another bath area through a hallway covered in 6 inch deep water. They had some projectors here and there displaying some sort of background photos on the bath walls, like pretending to be oceans, etc. There were some areas where you walk under little water streams.. and you have to imagine that that’s a waterfall that you are exploring. They have some “bridges” over the waterways in which they installed something remotely looking like “cannons” from which water comes out. There, you have to imagine that you are facing pirates.
It was the lowest effort “entertainment” facility that I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s like someone went to visit teamLab Planets Tokyo, and said “hey, we could make this too”. And then proceeded to tell their intern to replicate the experience’s water component with the lowest budget possible. Don’t repace the spa stone walls, it saves money. Create a “clouds” decoration by gluing synthetic cotton to the ceiling, it saves money.
And they charge $20 USD per person for this. Incredible.
On our way to Water World, we saw a banner displayed on one of the street walls. It was a banner supporting Charlie Kirk, the racist neo-nazi in the US. Apparently some conservative group or church had put up something supportiong Charlie Kirk. Interesting how the conservatives try to prop up each other. I guess especially now that their conservative president (Yoon Sukyeol) is in jail for treason.
We took the taxi to Seogwipo Traditional Market. Nice energy. Lots stall merchants vying for your attention. I ordered some sort of fried meat wrap thing, and the merchant started flame grilling it on the booth, whlie loudly yelling out. The yelling was completely unnecessary, but I guess it catches peoples’ attention while you are doing the most interesting part of the cooking (flame grilling).
We walked around trying different street foods for lunch. We looked around the sweet potato stalls and clothes stalls. After a while, we took the bus back to the hotel. Bus coverage was a bit spotty but we managed to find a line that would stop right next to our hotel, and save ourselves the $20 taxi fare.
