Budget Travel Korea | Busan | Haeundae Beach

! Running Man Site Alert =D


It was our last day in Korea on a Sunday and our flight home to Malaysia was at 5pm from Gimhae airport; so we decided to hit Haeundae beach in the morning before we close our Korean adventure this time around.

It's sunny alright, but that water was ice cold!
I love this; strictly NO smoking! Located right at the main access to the beach
This was the first time I've ever been to a really wide and long stretch of beach ... I mean the size is really huge (well, at least for me). All the beaches that I've ever been to are all narrow in width but I think in Haeundae you could easily have 10 futsal courts or more and hold an international tournament there hehe.

When we arrived at the beach around 10-ish in the morning, there weren't many weekend crowd yet but by mid day people started thronging this place as it also happened to be a public holiday in Korea then.

On the other side of the street is the beach. Those buildings are facing the sea.


We could see there were quite a number of huge mounds of sand on the beach and when we got closer, we saw artists on the mounds making sand castles .. what a delightful sight! 


Another first timer for me :D I have never seen professionally built sand castles before, let alone giant ones like these =D

Then we made our way closer to the water and found our spot. Laid out my pareo and set our picnic breakfast - warm instant rice, sambal ikan bilis (chili fried anchovies) from home, Pringles chips, hazelnut Pepero and 3 types of coffees which were caramel macchiato, mocha and vanilla latte that we bought at the nearby CU convenient store (Korean Seven Eleven). It was quite a spread :P

We would have a couple of Kebabs too if only we'd noticed the shop located just by the main street on our way to the beach from the subway exit ;( 

Pringles and hazelnut Pepero (green box) were our lifesavers in Korea especially when we were in Jeju and Busan. Get this, all of the Pringles chips we found in convenient stores here were imported from MALAYSIA :D :D <3 <3.. so that is  a confirmed and guaranteed halal snack whilst the latter was recommended by our host, Said at Eid Guesthouse in Seoul but I've already forgotten his explanations though :P. So have at it fellow Muslim backpackers, your available halal snacks in Korea ;).

The weather that day was beautiful, a bright, sunny end-of-spring Sunday but what a bummer the water was still chill. Many westerners were in their bathing suits but couldn't even take a dip. 
I brought along my full-on burqini too but I couldn't even stand playing with the water with my feet T_T .. felt the chills to my bone.




Notice the building at the end of the beach with the maroon sign below?


 That's the Westin Chosun Hotel; Running Man Ep83 was shot on the beach right in front of that hotel, where RM members had to look for running balls buried in the sand. The guests in that episode were Oh Ji-ho and Lee Da-hae. Check out these screenshots taken from the episode available at K Show Online site.




 However, we didn't go to that spot and only realized this when watching the rerun back home haha.

After our elaborate breakkie and some sunbathing later, we left the beach and checked out the beach town a little. 

This big crossroad is situated right in front of the beach, at the main beach access to be exact.  The beach is on the right side of this photo. If you follow my direction below, you'd come from the left side.

We came across the Kebab shop that I mentioned earlier. It's a shame that we were already full to go for the kebabs so we went for ice cream on cones instead and walked around Haeundae market before heading back. Most of the stalls there sell street food. 
Standing right at Haeundae Market entrance

Haeundae Market



Getting here:
Take subway line 2 (green) and get down Haeundae station. Take either exit 3 or 5 which run parallel with the main street. Just walk straight ahead as you exit and you will end up at the beach (red arrow in the photos below).


If you take exit 5, you would pass by this restaurant on your right ..
The crowd is heading straight towards the beach

.. and if you take exit 3 you would pass by these joints on your left which is on the other side of the street in this order towards the beach - an Indian cuisine restaurant, Haeundae Market entrance and the small kebab and ice cream stall I talked about.

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