Sea Change Okinawa: Busan and Gimhae pt 1

A street leading down to Gwangalli Beach in Busan, South Korea.

After a couple of nights in Seoul, we hopped on a KTX fast train down to Busan to catch up with my brother and sister-in-law. The trip takes 3 hours and the train goes as fast as some of the shinkansen (bullet) trains in Japan, but is a third of the cost! They picked us up from the train station and we drove to the Gwangalli beach area for lunch. We originally hoped to go to a pizza place, but it was closed so we ended up at an Italian restaurant next to the beach. The food was average, but the company was great. It was so nice to be catching up with my brother for the first time since Christmas in Australia.

Gwangalli Beach, Busan

Gwangalli Beach in Busan is a large beach on the edge of the city surrounded by great restaurants and bars. An excellent place to spend a summer day!

Gwangalli Beach, Busan

Reunited with his Uncle

After lunch we drove out to Gimhae, where they live, and checked our stuff into our hotel then went back to my brother's apartment to hang out, have some drinks and catch up. Little G was SUPER excited when he got a special present from his uncle...A drone!!

After a while we headed down the road for dinner on what my brother calls "restaurant street". It's basically a street of Korean BBQ joints of various different varieties and other restaurants, with lots of outside seating, which was perfect in the warm weather. We went to a pork one, which was delicious, and because my brother is a regular, they were kind enough to let us bring a bunch of mushrooms and vegetables for H to grill on a meat-free BBQ because she's a vegetarian and let's face it, Korean BBQ restaurants don't offer much for a vegetarian. We drank plenty of beer as well as flavoured Soju (I think it was pomegranate) before catching a taxi back to the hotel when it was G's bedtime.

Maybe it was the fact that we were hanging out with people who lived there, but the south of South Korea had already captured my heart more than Seoul. It was an awesome start to our time down the south of Korea!