Daegu to Busan on the KTX
I did all I could above to not mention the title of a popular movie I will never see due to the fact it is celebrated universally for its extreme violence. Whenever I say Busan, you say train to? and I say, never seen it, never will.
The journey is all of 45 minutes from Daegu, and a lot of it is inside tunnels. The train was pretty empty. As usual, you do not need a ticket of any kind, no one checks anything, nothing gets scanned, just the honour system.
I did mess about a bit in Daegu before going to the station as you shall see.
Once arriving in Busan, the station is a bit out of the way, and as I am too early to check in it is a good excuse to waste time again with some shots in and around the station, as I will be leaving by a different station in 7 nights time.
That is correct, I am staying in Busan 7 nights, that is a long time for me to stay in one place. Prior to COVID that would have been a long time for me to stay in one place including my actual home. It is a good thing then my hotel is in an excellent location, very chaotic outside. My hotel is also very nice. Also the weather seems cold here, people are getting around in jackets. It was very hot when I left Daegu just an hour prior just up the road.
Now assume the brace position for some particularly procedural photos.
Before leaving Daegu, I took an early walk around the city. Here is a cafe, with seating, and no staff. You pay and use the machine, clean up after yourself. It is open all night. Can you imagine the homeless people that would destroy this place immediately in Australia? If anyone is offended by what I said, please feel free to join me on a tour of Melbourne one morning.
Korean shoe shop. Kind of looks like what I said above but in the form of shoes.
This rather bad photo is just to show the smoking area. You cannot smoke in the streets in Korean cities, just like Japan, only in the designated smoking shame area. The area here is actually in the middle of the road.
My Daegu hotel was in a street full of shops selling loud karaoke gear. It seems they rented it all out to election trucks. Election over, hundreds of little trucks are being dismantled and their karaoke speakers are being re packaged to be exported in as new condition.
Daegu station. I was early of course.
Inside Daegu station. Thrilling. Actually it is large and quite nice, but not as nice as the store next door.
Basement 3 of the station Shinsegae store. I should probably have come here one night to explore.
If you think the outside of the store is huge from this angle, look at the next pic.
It continues over a series of highways connected by a giant footbridge. Photo is not really doing the scale any favours here.
I went down to the platforms early too, so here is some train tracks.
Inside of the train pic is the same as the last inside of the train pic, only less people.
Busan station interior. My next leg will not depart from here as I am taking a very slow coastal train. So if you want pics of Busan station, this is your only chance.
I presume this will become another enormous Shinsagae store soon.
Busan station from the outside, on this side there is not a lot to see.
However the other side is pretty interesting with buildings going up the hill.
My hotel seems excellent, the bed is western style and actually has a mattress rather than a slab of slate. Deceiving pic as the entrance I am standing in is quite large, and there is more room going around the corner off the left edge of the screen.
And finally, to keep my mother happy, full bathroom picture, with full bath.
Exploring the Nampo area of Busan
I previously got reacquainted with Daegu. On the same trip in 2015 when I went to Daegu I also went to Busan, so now it is time to get reacquainted with Busan - although there is a difference. Daegu is a smaller place, and I stayed in roughly the same location both times. Busan is a much bigger place and I am staying in a different part of town, a much more vibrant part of town. When last I was here I visited this part of town only at night, when I could not see up the hills, and the hills are what is interesting. The view is excellent. The streets are staircases, complete with street signs.
After exploring side of the hill world and the park above it, I descended back into the shopping area and discovered the biggest market I have seen yet in Korea. It was a mix of everything, dead, alive, clothing, above ground, under ground, neon etc.
Finally, it was time to find my dinner, lots of choices, but when I spotted one of my favourites my decision was made.
My hotel is right over the road from here. I was familiar with this gentrified street from my last visit.
I immediately headed to the hills and up stair cases. A sky road of sorts bends around a corner on stilts. They have installed these rollers to stop cars from scraping along the railing.
This is a street. There are lots of similar stair cases going up the hill.
Excellent clear view.
In the park above it all is this monument. Looks painful.
View from the park is not as impressive as lower down where it is steeper and you can see onto the roofs of houses.
I plan to go up the hill over the other side there and look back this way.
There is also a lift to take you back down if you cant handle stairs, but it does not go all the way. Maybe there are more lifts.
Now that I am back down, time for a view back up the hill from the market street.
Inside the markets was a big grid of covered streets. The stalls here are all selling boxes of cigarettes and children's toys.
Very colourful area.
Lots of beer halls.
For my dinner, Sapporo soup curry. The place was quite rustic, they had a giant old radio and every table and chair was different. The menu, only in Korean, went into great detail about how authentic the soup curry is, although google lens translate was occasionally getting weird, one type of vegetable was translated as Whoopi, as in Goldberg. Anyway, I ordered the 18 kinds of vegetable soup curry maximum spicy, received the warning after I pointed at max spicy from the concerned waiter, and was surprised it came with rice. I had this in Sapporo without rice a couple of times.
If they are giving rice, then I will eat it, but I am not going to daintily spoon out each piece onto the rice. My choices were, add the rice to the curry (wiser choice), construct a heat proof shield out of paper serviettes and empty the curry onto the rice (what I did). Amazingly I did not get burnt or spill it everywhere. 2 pics of dinner, that's rare! Also, it was delicious.