Buddha’s Birthday in Busan: The Final Day!

The final day in Busan came quicker than expected. We woke at around 8am as we were meeting the rest of the group at 9. Ready and raring to go, we jumped on the coach and headed off for our first stop of the day, Yonggungsa Temple.

Situated along the north eastern coast of Busan, this temple provides some amazing views and colourful statues along with some cute little markets down the main strip leading up to the temple itself. It was quite busy but this didn’t spoil the experience, and we even had time to taste the popular Korean delicacy known as Beondegi, which is basically baked BUGS! As you can imagine it tasted much like...well bugs, to be honest! Gross!

 12 animals of the zodiac

 Huge golden Buddha on his birthday weekend!

 Yonggungsa Temple from above

Yonggungsa Temple from below

 

Next it was off to Haeundae Beach to chill out for the rest of our trip. Here we could have taken a stroll along Dongbaekseom island to see the mermaid statue, however we were all pretty tired so decided to just hangout on the beach and relax before the epic bus ride back. During our visit we managed to catch the Haeundae Sand Festival, which runs along the beach at this time of year.

It features a lot of different sand sculpture designs such as scene's from Aladdin and Alice in Wonderland which were quite interesting to see, espcially as the artists were creating them right in front of our faces. This amazing beach is exactly what you would expect it to be and more. With clear blue waters and golden sands, this is also the location of Busan Aquarium, which I will definitely be coming back to visit. 

 Haeundae Sand Festival

 Aladdin!

Just before visiting the sand scultures, we had a bit of a disappointing lunch at a place called ‘Mom’s Touch'. Its a chain of fast food resturants here in Korea and i've got to say, it was pretty damn awful. Our food took ages and when it finally did arrive it was cold! Yuck! However, this really is the only negative thing I have to say about the entire weekend, and so it wasn't too hard to get over with a view like Haeundae beach in front of us. 

After this, it was soon time to head back to the bus and start the long journey home. Having never visited Busan before, I’ve got to say that I was very impressed. It’s a stunning place packed full of different things to see and do, and this has probably been my favourite weekend in Korea so far. 

Amongst the numerous amounts of temples, gorgeous beaches and stunning architecture lay the one thing that really puts the icing on the cake in this lovely city, and that is the people. The people who live here are all incredibly laid back and friendly. Korean’s on the whole are usually this way inclined, but I noticed a real difference in Busan in that they don’t seem to care as much about the little things, which makes for an incredibly relaxed atmosphere. 

Haeundae Beach

There is definitely something in the water here, and I could honestly not recommend a visit to Busan enough. I imagine it would also be a beautiful place to live too, which is something that I myself would definitely consider for the coming year of 2016. So watch this space, who knows what the future will bring...