Continuing our travels through South Korea (continue here if you missed our trip to Seoul!), we took the train south-bound from Seoul to Busan. It takes less than 3 hours to get to Busan on the high speed train and it’s quite a change in atmosphere! At first we weren’t sure how much we liked Busan, but our affection grew daily as we discovered delicious Korean BBQ restaurants, the lively fish market in the evening, a cute coffee shop in Busan’s book alley and Gamcheon Culture Village. (It was rather chilly and we skipped Busan’s famous beaches.)

Gamcheon Culture Village is easily accessible by public bus or by foot and you can walk around the village for quite a few hours, exploring little alleys, workshops and viewpoints. Built on the foothills of a coastal mountain, it’s not just a tourist stop, but the locals actually still live here.

Our general ‘how to escape all the other tourists’ rule also worked here: just lose yourself walking into backstreets and further away from bus stops, and the crowds will lessen.

All the houses are painted in different colours and not just their walls, but also the pipes, walls, steps… there was certainly a lot of creativity shown in terms of how the residents decorated their houses.

Gamcheon Culture Village is definitely worth a half-day trip when in Busan!

– Her

If you are interested in traveling through Korea, you might also like these articles:

• Autumn in Seoul

• Autumn Foliage in Korea: Gyeongju