Itinerary for today:
1)Gamcheon Culture Village
2)Beomeosa Temple
The initial plan was to watch the sunrise yesterday morning but we couldnt wake up. And as this morning would be our last chance hence i was determined to wake the rest up. Last night we checked online and found out that this morning's sunrise would be at 5.27am. But the weird thing is when we woke up at 5am, the sky was already bright. It wasnt dark.
I had a bad feeling that the sun might already be up. I was a little sad ,thinking that we really missed our last chance. We were contemplating whether to just go back to sleep or try our luck since we have already gotten up and prepared for it.
I was glad that we did the latter. When we walked to the haeundae beach, we didnt see any sun. We thought that the sun was already up but hidden by clouds, we were about to leave when i had second thoughts. We decided to stay for 5 more minutes just to try our luck again. A few minutes later, we noticed something bright peeping up from the edge of the sea and the mountain. Oh boy , we didnt miss the sunrise !
I was so excited and relieved that we didnt leave. What a beautiful sunrise ! (: Eh dont laugh at my suaku-ness k, seeing sunrise in a foreign land gives me a special feeling as compared to watching sunrise at east coast park.
Rewarded by the beautiful view of sunrise, it was time to head back to our guesthouse to rest and wait for our breakfast that starts at 8am. We had more than an hour to kill so we strolled back, enjoying the morning sea breeze.
On our way back, we found a shortcut to the beach. For the past 2 days we had been taking the long route to the beach without realising it. Our long route consist of walking to the haeundae metro station, then following the directions from the station to the beach. Took us like 20minutes or so . The new shortcut took us less than 10 minutes. Noobs us.
After our breakfast, we decided to visit Gamcheon Culture
Village as Julie had to leave early. Due to time constraints, we decided to take the cab. I cant remember how much it was, but it was cheap as there were 4 people. The village reminded me of the village at hyehwa in Seoul. Both villages were very similar. Directions were given in the form of fish like wooden boards. Its quite easy to spot.
look closely, they used the pants to decorate their potted plants
very colourful
notice the faces?
oops 'accidentally' poked someone's butt .
hmmm which direction shall we go?
we ventured into some houses and were greeted by walls filled with signatures.
tadah MINE!
the hongkong lady was busy trying to find an empty space to do hers. her hong kong signature
so every house we went to has a meaning to it. the house where we signed in was the house of light.
signatures even on the ceiling. wah tall people. Finally hong kong lady found some empty space to sign!
at first i didnt realise this was a mirrored room. I was wondering how this room could contain so many people. Only then i noticed it was mirrored. Slow reaction -.-
we found some exercise area. Hahahaha all well fed in korea, need to do so exercise to keep fit!
this room was quite cool, the machines were activated by sensors that are in turn activated when one walks pass it.
isnt it colourful? brighten up one's mood.
okayys last photo of the village and we are off to the KTX Station!
Review:
If you have yet to visit the village at Hyehwa, this would be a nice place to visit. The pros is the beautiful view and the colourful houses. The cons is that it is quite inaccessible (imo) and not much stuff to do other than posing with the paintings on the houses . I think we only spent 1hour there cuz its just following the directions and walking thats all. As i have visited the village at Hyehwa, this village was rather similar with not much new stuff. The only difference is that i can see the sea while at Hyehwa, its just buildings below me.
Directions:
I took a cab but Kian has kindly provided me information with other modes of transportation so here you go:
By Bus & Metro
1)take subway line 1 to Toseong Station, exit 6
2) You will be facing an intersection. Turn right at the corner and walk straight. You will see a hospital on your right. The bust stop is right in front of the hospital.
3) take either Bus 2 or 2-2, it will take you to the GamCheon Culture Village at the top of the hill.
By Cab:
Tell the driver 감천문화마을 (the actual name) or 감천2동 (the address)
We cabbed to Busan Station as we didnt have enough time to take the bus.
julie and i
Jen and i
Yuni was in the front so i couldnt snap a photo with her.
after sending Julie off, we made our way to Beomeosa Temple.
Initially we wanted to cab from the Beomeosa station to the temple but couldnt get any cab so we decided to take the bus instead. I expected the Temple to be large and special but it wasnt. On the contrary, it was small and not much different from other temples that i have visited. Boring. The only fun part was climbing up. I was quite interested to hike up to reach the summit but as it was too impromptu and we had to catch our KTX later so we dropped the idea of hiking all the way up.
Here are some photos of the temple
so this explains why i saw so many large boulders. the power of nature, WHOA
hiking up on the boulders. we saw some hikers , they told us it takes 2hours to reach the summit.
i used pop art on my camera so the leaves looked extra vibrant. But even without the special function, it still looked nice.
Ratings: 2/5
Review:
I was disappointed by it. Nothing much interesting other than the huge boulders. If youre on time constraint, can just skip this temple. You wont miss much stuff. I kind of regretted spending my last few hours at Busan going to this Beomeosa Temple. I should have visited other places instead.
Directions:
If you are still keen to go, here you are:
Subway + Bus:
1) Beomeosa Station exit 5 or 7
2) walk between the 2 exits along the road for about 5 minutes and you will reach the Samsin bus stop.
3)take bus no. 90 and you will arrive at Beomeosa Temple Ticket office.
Back at our hostel, it was time to leave. Grabbed some dinner at a random pork restaurant near our hostel. Forgot to take photos so no review for it. Sorry!
As we checked out earlier in the morning and i didnt want to lug my luggage with me the whole day. So i left my luggage under their care. They were very friendly and stored my luggage in a room, making me feel at ease that my luggage was well taken care of.
Here are some photos of the guesthouse in case i hadnt shown you guys:
hehe our faces on the board with our reviews of it. They had a lot of photos and reviews from every guests.
The place where we used to have our breakfast
where we dry our hair
the huge bathrooms
our room
double decker beds. Love the bed and blanket
helpful information on places of interest
the kitten that never fails to scare me
Ratings: 4/5
Review:
Pros:
free breakfast, comfortable bed, towels provided. Hairdryer provided. Useful information on places of interest provided. easily accessible. friendly staff. have a kitten to play with (for cat lovers)
cons:
bathroom- no privacy. Rooms are very narrow. There were 2 shower booths in each bathroom. 1 bathroom for males, 1 bathroom for females. One door for each bathroom. Only a glass partition separating the shower booths. So you could actually see other people bathing which means no privacy and i was quite shocked. So the only thing i dislike about the guesthouse is the no privacy part. And if the person at the corner of the bathroom is done with bathing and walks towards the door, she will pass by the booth beside hers. yes, no privacy.
I didnt know the rooms are that small. Only have space for 1 person to walk when they get off their bunk beds. But hey, i doubt you will spend much time in your room when youre in busan to travel so that was not a big issue to me. Yups thats about all for the review on the guesthouse.
location: very good , < 5minutes walk from haeundae beach. very near subway too. there are restaurants nearby. its near Busan Aquarium too, near quite a number of places of interest.
