Week 14: Beaches of Busan

HAEUNDAE BEACH

Haeundae Beach is the most popular beach in all of South Korea during the summer months. Here, “parasails” as people call them (I say “beach umbrella”) are lined up from the start to the end of the beach, umbrella tops touching each other. Every 25 yards, or where ever there is a color change in the beach umbrellas, there are little walkways to get to the ocean. Never had I been to or seen a beach so crowded! Coming from Oregon the beaches are sparsely populated, so growing up I always dreamed of frecuenting a populated beach. Haeundae was a dramatic answer to my dreams!

Haeundae beach is so crowded, however, that unless you rent your own beach umbrella–which may be already sold out–there is no place to lay really! The beach umbrellas go about 5 feet from the water. When the tide comes up everyone gets soaked under those umbrellas. When I saw a lot of sunbathers get wet and screech, I had to stop and laugh at the site of it all.

SONGDO BEACH

Sunday I went to Songdo beach. It is the perfect combination of a crowded beach, yet laid back. There are lots of beach umbrellas, but there would still be no trouble finding my own little area to lay out and sunbathe….or in my case, burn. ^^ At Songdo beach people enter the water with their inflatables–just like at Haeundae–but you wont feel left out if you don’t have one and simply jump in! It seems like Songdo beach has more of a laid back atmosphere, so I enjoyed this small beach strip. My only qualm was there were no waves whatsoever, so the thrill of wave-jumping was absent. Nevertheless, it’s always nice to be in nature.

Beach umbrellas of Busan.

 

The rocks skirt around Songdo Beach.

TAEJONDAE CLIFFS

This was more of a hike around a penensula than actual “beachin’ it” on the sand, but Taejondae was really refreshing.

Once I got past my lazy bones, I felt so refreshed in nature.

I enjoyed mountain hiking and seeing some great views of isalnds in the distance, but after a day of beach-hopping and a 2 hour hike, by the end of the day, I have to admit I was a hungry, tired, sweaty grump! However, as soon as I got some fried kimbop in my stomach, life was good again ;-p

…desperately hungry and maybe a little delusional from the heat and dehydration (notice the sunburn), I headed straight into (wait for it! lolz) Krispy Kreme donuts of all places to reflenish my energy. Not very healthy you think? Well, I tried a Green Tea Donut and NY Cheesecake Donut. OK, it wasn’t healhty but it was oh-so-good. It even left me with enough energy to browse around in my favorite shopping area in Busan (thus far), Nampo-dong.