Long time no see, Kyeong

Day 1, 9 September 2017

Exhausted but I was smiling.

After 13 hours of travelling on plane & train, and recovering from a flu I just caught yesterday, I was frankly speaking not in my best condition. I was groggy and lethargic. The many hours of travelling came about from the transit flights and the different lines we had to take to reach Busan, as it was where our first airbnb was. From Incheon, to go to Busan, we first had to catch the Airport Railway Express (AREX) from Incheon and take it all the way to Seoul station. The duration is 43 minutes if it is the non-stop rail. The express non-stop rail ticket costs 7000 won. It follows a strict train schedule so we couldn’t be late! Next up was the true Train to Busan (with no zombies of course). We already bought the KORAIL passes online from ChangiRecommends so we got it at a discounted rate. J The whole train ride was 3 hours long tho. I probably looked like a zombie after the ride hahah.

The silver lining in all of this many hours of travelling was actually the free Lotte Duty Free magazines in the AREX train. Hahha, why? Cos Twice was on the cover of this edition’s magazine! I went with a couple of my friends and I actually scheduled a surprise meet up with an old pal of mine that just moved back to Korea months ago. So there he was waiting for us at Busan station and we were all really happy to see each other after a long time. Hyung, 오랜만 이네 ! Haha, now with a true Korean as our local tour guide, navigating around the subways was a breeze. The downside of it was that the subways had plenty of stairs and the accessibility of elevators were pretty low. Yep, we had like luggages with us and guess who ended up sweating real bad when we first checked in to our apartment. J Our apartment was huge and bigger than expected. It had four queen sized beds and a second floor.

Okay so after savouring jajjangmyeon and sweet and sour pork at a local restaurant, we set off to Haeundae beach as our first item on the itinerary. The streets outside Haeundae station were spacious and the weather was really cooling. I saw a few performances and also many hand-crafted products along those streets. Kind of therapeutic I must say the highlight of it was of course, the Haeundae beach. The beach was teeming with people from all ages. Saw many foreigners alike me as well. And yes, Korean kids are really cute haha. After playing with the sand and by the shore, our Korean tour guide took us to a fancy restaurant in between Gwangali beach and Haeundae beach. ( Yes, Busan is known for their many beaches). The restaurant was called Poong Won Jang. It’s quite popular and busy during dinner hours so do remember to queue early. I fell in love with the food and also the atmosphere that night. We could see some fireworks set off by people like a mile away haha. It was a hearty and sumptuous meal. I strongly recommend the Seawood Soup Fish base. The soup has a very tasty but clean texture. The fish was not bad but if you are in for the Zhongkouwei go for the beef base. They have abalone, beef, chicken and fish bases. Their glass noodles were unexpectedly tasty too haha. The prices were reasonable too.

Considering the first half of our day was spent travelling, going to the beach was enough to call it for the day. Okay I kidd, we were just lazy and too tired to continue haha. So… we treated ourselves by ordering in Chicken to our apartment. We got the help from Kyeong who could communicate over the phone with his fellow Koreans haha. If not the order would not have been possible.. Having watched countless kdramas, I finally understood the pleasure of ordering in chicken and beer. The chicken in korea is really WORLD CLASS hahah. We ordered the Kyochon's honey seasame chicken. A delicious box for the four of us just cost only 15 000 won. Hahah. And unable to resist, we went for round II. Probably gained like a kg that night. Hahaha.