Busan

Posted by on 10, Oct 2016 in 2016 - South Korea, Asia, South Korea, Tilly the Tandem

Busan

2 Days, No Cycling!


Imagine a flat peice of clay that someone then punches widely spaced random indentations into with their fingers, well Busan clings to the flatter bits of land on this tableau and ignores all the mountains.  It means the city is separated into districts on various sides of these ridges and each district has its own character. 

The district we stayed in was along the river that we’d cycled, it was the industrial supplies area but was bustling and livley and our hotel was a gorgeous boutique hotel where we managed to get a deluxe room for less than a standard rooms for 3 nights. Amazing value at less than  £35 a night.

It’s a fun city with beaches, temples and as usual millions of places to eat fish and meat. Fancy cows bones in pig intestine soup with brains, a side of blood and fresh eel?  No problem.   Actually there’s quite a few vege places to eat too, but as someone had kindly decided to open an Indian right next door to the hotel we pigged out for two nights on a great curry.

We gave Tilly a couple of days off and did some touristy things, visiting temples, strolling along the beach and going up the wobbly tower, wouldn’t fancy doing that in an earthquake and typhoon and we generally had a really good time. 

We met up in the centre of Busan with the intrepid round the world Spaniards Bego and Vego (who have a great blog if you can read Spanish)  for an embarrassingly poor Macaroni and cheese (they weren’t too keen on the Korean food either) but we had a really great evening with them anyway, though I’d imagine they may decline any further invitations to meet us for a meal!

Our last night saw us sitting in a bar overlooking the beach and massive suspension bridge with people letting fireworks off below whilst enjoying a Mexican which was absolutely fabulous in an American bar with Australians all around watching Rugby, odd but fun!

From Busan we had to find transport to either Jeju (an island south West of Korea which apparently is the Hawaii of Korea),  or onto the start of our next cycle route – the Seomjingang river.  Jeju was out, the tourist information informed us as it was raining so the ferries weren’t sailing. Not waterproof ferries eh?  Really?  We must have lost something in translation so we decided to head onto the Seomjingang via train. Can’t do that me laddo with one of them tandem thingies, they informed us.  Not unless you can take the wheels off and box it up.  Errr, no we can’t.  We had been told in Seoul we could take Tilly on a train no problem, but again we must have lost something in translation as you can only take bikes on the bike trains and they only go to Seoul. 

Bus next then, so after half an hour trying to hunt down the bus station to go from guess where it is? Yep, Opposite the Hotel, and we can see just the one bus stand from our window and obviously it’s the bus we need! 

The bus people were much more positive about the bike than the train. Basically if you can get it into the hold you can take it they said and Tilly squeezed in with millimetres to spare. Time for our next river….

But before that how about some interesting quirky South Korean things? 

You can’t put toilet paper down the loo in lots of places, it’s crap I know, but it blocks the sewers, but fret yee not, many motel toilets have automatic botty washers and heated seats with built in hair dryer to dry your washed bum!

There’s no such thing as a shower curtain here for showers over baths, just a big drain in the middle of the bathroom floor, really good idea too.

You don’t get all those silly mini bottles of shampoo etc just a huge family value bottle of each. You also get one bar of soap and a tube of toothpaste that is changed when it runs out.  How many if you just went ewww!

I know they’re a thin and small people but the towels you get in the motels are smaller than a tea towel.  They’re more of a napkin than towel.

You always get complimentary toothbrushes. Razors and various potions with your obligatory packet of two when checking into a hotel.  

Love motels are very discreet, you drive into a garage just for your room, the door shuts behind you and you pay at machine at the room entrance. No staff, no one to see who is using the room as the cars all have smoked glass windows.   And there are loads of these hotels too!


You always get a PC in your room and a 50″ screen, a fridge and of course air conditioning. Lots of times you get a hot and cold water machine and a sterlizing machine for your mugs. We’ve had electric blankets, vibrating beds, round beds, mirrors on walls ceilings and windows, sex toy vending machines, love seats, leather sofas around the bed, red lights above the bed under the bed and on the walls, poetry in English all over the walls, half naked men and women wall paper, so may different coloured rooms you think you need a deluxe paint chart to choose your room and always bath robes.  We really love the motels,  they’re just great fun!

Lightswitches are a real no no. You get a central control panel and a remote control that does the lights, TV, Set top box and air con, all in Korean so you end up pressing buttons for ages to figure out what does what.  If I wasn’t here’s Linda would spend the time in the dark! 

Too our next river then…


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