Travel: Korea XiaTian Day 1 (2014)

Highlight:
Gamcheon Culture Village
Songdo Beach
Gwangali Bridge Light Show

19/6/2014, Thursday

We took Airasia from SG > KL (Transit), KL > BUSAN. The transit is around 1-2h maximum. I really can't remember don't have any clue how long the whole flight was (because there's some time difference thingy and I'm super bad with stuff like that). I think you can check the major airlines out before booking as they are really quite affordable when there's some sort of promo going on. We paid SGD$500++ for our flight and that includes 20kg check-in to and 25kg check-in back. Well, I exceeded #whatsnew


Flight was good and the seats were comfy enough. I feel that Airasia is more spacious than Tigerairways and even Scoot?




20/6/2014, Friday

Touched down at Busan at approximately 8.30am. Bought our travel card (aka Cashbee or in Singapore terms, Ezlink) from the convenience store. The card cost us KRW 2,500 ($3.125), iirc.


Before that we purchased our sim card from Changi Airport at $38 iirc. It includes 500MB of data and a certain amount of money for calls/texts. You can use the money to pay for any excess data usage, that is before the sim card expires. Topping up will extend the expiry date.

Apple users are able to tap on the free olleh wifi (which is available almost everywhere in Korea). Somehow Samsung users aren't able to connect to the free public olleh wifi.




Gimhae International Airport > Haeundae Beach area
By Airport Limousine, 4,500 KRW ($5.625)




We took the airport limousine to Haeundae beach area. I believe we alighted at Hotel Grand.



Details for the Airport Limousine:

Destination	Intervals	Origin		Fare (won)	Route		Major Stops
		First Bus	Last Bus		Origin	Destination
Haeundae	15	Airport		4,500	Airport	Haeundae	Airport-Namcheon-dong(Hwamok Mansion)-Hotel Chosun Beach- Hotel Grand-Hotel Marriott-Hotel Paradise- Haeundae Station
		07:10	21:55
		Haeundae
		05:25	21:10

Accommodation: Jun Motel

We stayed in Jun Motel for 2 days.

The room is full of mirrors (like every wall literally) and there's two bathrooms. One toilet bowl though :(


The room is pretty but 
1. Poor service
2. Counter staff does not speak English well
3. No room service despite requesting for it the next day (And it is very frustrating as our toilet bowl clogged wtf)
4. The area is not exactly the safest of a group of girls. I will explain this later.


The room is really nice but I believe you can find similar standards around (with better service and all)

We paid KRW 271,915 ($339) for 2 nights, 4 pax.
Not vey affordable too oh well.




We couldn't check in as they only allow checking in after 2pm. Hence, we made our way to ht and co's place. Btw my luggage.... First it was the handle, then the lock :'(
#BADLUCKJL

Luckily gw managed to break my lock lol.


Freshened up before making our way to down to our first destination: Gamcheon Culture Village ( 감천문화마을)

Frankly speaking, I am not too sure how to go there. I merely followed.



 Haeundae Station > Lunch > Gamcheon Culture Village
By subway (no idea which station) and a short 10 minutes bus ride (2 or 2-2)






We had our first authentic Korean food at one of the random food stores outside the station.
I ordered Naengmyeon  (냉면) and it is not my bowl of noodles lol.


It is really chewy so you have to cut the noodles into shorter pieces with scissors.


Some other dishes:



After a not so satisfying lunch, we took a bus up to Gamcheon Culture Village. A very nice lady guided us on our way there. The bus ride was quite thrilling because we were manoeuvring up and down slopes and the roads are really narrow. Will probably die of heart attack if I drive in Korea.



Gamcheon Culture Village



The place is really interesting, you can read up on it if you want (read: google it on your own).


There's no admission fees but you have to pay KRW 2,000 ($2.50) if you wish to purchase a map. With this map, you can participate in the scavenger hunt. You can redeem a postcard once you've collected 9 stamps.







Climbed up a flight of stairs to this!