Thursday, October 31, 2013

Seoul and Busan Trip 2013 - Day 2 - Making our way to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple by public transport

NOTE:PLEASE ASK PERMISSION BEFORE YOU RE POST MY PHOTOS ON TO YOUR BLOG. THERE ARE SOME BLOGGERS WHO DID NOT ASK MY PERMISSION AND REPOST MY PHOTOS WITHOUT THE COURTESY OF LINKING BACK TO MY BLOG. THIS IS LIKE STEALING. PEOPLE, I HAVE SPEND MUCH TIME TAKING PHOTOS AND DOING HOMEWORK ON MY TRAVELLING INFORMATION AND KINDLY SHARE THESE INFORMATION TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN THEM. IF NECESSARY, I WILL POST SCREEN SHOT OF YOUR BLOG TO SHOW YOUR BAD MANNERS OF STEALING MY PHOTOS. THE MOST DISGUSTING THING THEY DID WAS TO SCREEN SHOT MY PHOTOS AND CORP OFF MY BLOG TITLE FROM MY PHOTO AND REPOST THEM IN THEIR BLOG AS THEIR OWN.

This is my third time visiting South Korea but was my first time to visit Busan. So was a kind of satisfaction to me that I am able to use their public transport easily.

Please note that the T money card we bought in Seoul could be used to pay for the public transport in Busan but we could not top up the credit in the card in any of the subway machines or most of the convenience shops cause they use different cards. The only convenience shop we came across that we could top up our T money card credit was G25 above Jagalchi Market Exit 10 (will talk about this when I post about Jagalchi).

You could check the balance in your T money card in the above photo (circled). At this point we have to decide whether to use our T money card or 1 day pass ticket.

We decided to buy the 1 day pass at 4000 won with unlimited rides on their subway. You can use the machine to change your big notes to small notes cause the ticket vending machines accept 1000 notes only.

We took the train from Bujeon Station and had to alight one station away at Seomyeon Station to transfer to the green line to reach Haeundae Station or you could take the green line direct from Seomyeon Station, just look for the sign that shows Haeundae.

The Busan Map has a good illustration of the Busan Metro Line Map, just circled the destination you want to reach for easy navigation. Day2 plans was to travel only on the green line, with proper planning we do not want to travel north south east west of the map to save time.

You might want to note that the priority seats in the train are meant for senior citizen, handicapped, pregnant women or people with babies, even though the train was not crowded these seats were not taken. It will be very impolite to take up these reserved seats, although hubby and me are in our fifites we are not deem old lol, there are more older folks than us so we politely gave up our seats.

Finally reached haeundae station after about 30minutes, there were be announcement in Korean, English, Mandarin and Japanese.

Sigh! more stairs to climb!

Exit 5 if you want to go to Haeundae Beach but our destination was the bus stop to take the public bus to Haedong Yonggung Temple so we need to head out at EXIT 7.

The bus stop is just infront of EXIT 7 (no need to cross any road). On return from the temple, you need to alight on the opposite side where there's a park with a pavilion or shelter with blue roof for easy identification, I forgot to take photo of the pavilion.

You need to take bus 181 and from the screen we could see how many minutes the bus will arrived. It is in Korean but commonsense tell me that 3 ..... means the bus coming in 3 mins.

You can also take a cab from here by showing him the picture. Simple taxi phrases can be found in here.

I printed this picture from the website of Visit Korea as most of the locals does not speak or understand English so by showing them the picture they could tell me if I am at the correct bus stop to take the bus to the temple.

We used our T money card to pay for our bus fare, if I am not mistaken I think is about 1200 won.

There's korean announcement in the bus to announce every station, but might missed the annoucement cause the bus was noisy, so I show the picture to the lady next to me and with all the hand gesture language, she pointed yes I have to alight now and most tourists alight at this bus stop so cant be wrong. The bus ride was about 30 minutes.

You might want to take note of this big building as to when to alight. From the bus stop need to walk about 10mintues, is not that bad because of the cool weather.

Next post will be photos of the beautiful temple.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Seoul and Busan Trip 2013 - Day 2 - Morning Breakfast

Day2, had a morning breakfast at Angel in US, a bakery shop just diagonally opposite IBIS Hotel. The shop look small but it is actually quite big if you go upstairs and take a look at the spacious shop. There's also a 24 hour minimart just beside Angel in US(circled in the above photo), worth taking a look, they also sell some pastries/bread.

The staff could speak english and their menu are all in English.

After placing our orders, we were given an electronic queue which will buzz when our food are ready.

Very expensive breakfast lol. For those who are on budget, you can take your breakfast in the convenience shop on the ground floor of IBIS Hotel, they also sell some pastries, instant noodles, etc. Can heat up your food with the microwave oven inside the convenience shop. They have sitting area where you can have your breakfast.

After breakfast, walked around the area for a while and noticed there's a vietnamese restaurant in the same building as Angel in US.

Time to set out our journey to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple, do read the next post on how to go to the temple by public transport.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Seoul and Busan Trip 2013 - Day 1 - Seomyeon Street in Busan

After a nice and short nap in the hotel (I could not sleep in the plane or train), we headed to the most popular street in Seoul, Seomyeon.

Right in front of IBIS Hotel, there's a underpass where we could just walked down the stairs to the underground mall of Seomyeon which is linked to Seomyeon Station.

Dinner was at this little shop located in the heart of Seomyeon, they only served three types of dishes (Pork Cutlet, Chicken Cutlet and Pork Cutlet with cheese). They could not speak English so we just point to the picture what we want and just point the sauce we wanted to go with our dish. We choose curry sauce.

After dinner, a short stroll in Seomyeon, it was very cold that night(was about 6 degrees according to weather forecast).

Spotted a dog mascot distributing some flyers, a common sight in South Korea where mascots were used to distribute flyers.

Many such carts selling hot snacks were a welcome sight in this chilly cold weather.

There were rows of fortune telling shops, I guess the locals love to have their fortune told.

Paris Baguette is rather popular in South Korea(being the top bakery in korea), almost everyday we are sure to buy some assorted bread and pastries back to the hotel to eat or we eat in the beautiful decorated shop. I think they have a branch in Singapore, will visit the bakery shop one day.

The different assorted bread and pastries really attracted us, they are really very creative.

Decided to head indoors to Lotte Department Store to escape the chilly night.

End the day with a visit to the Seven Luck Casino just beside the Lotte Department Store, need to go in through Lotte Hotel's entrance and the casino is located on the second floor. The casino was very small, need to bring along your casino if you decided to gamble there.

Dont worry we are not compulsive gambler, just play few rounds on the jackpot or rather donating some money to the jackpot machines lol.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Seoul and Busan Trip 2013 - Day 1 - Hotel Ibis Ambassador Busan City Centre, Busan

The reception of IBIS Hotel is located on the 17th floor whereelse the hotel rooms are located from Level 10 to Level 16.

The rest of the hotel seems to be occupied by a hospital but the lift entrance to the hospital is through another wing of the complex, the hotel and hospital dont share the same lifts and lobbies. The restuarant is located on the same floor as the reception.

They can speak and understand English so no problem with all the communication with the hotel and restaurant staffs.

You can ask the staff for the password for the free wifi.

We always asked for twin beds so the room will be bigger and we dont have to share one blanket or comforter lol.

The toilet doors could not be locked and is very clean cause the housekeeping staff did a good job cleaning them daily(if possible do remember to tip the housekeeping for a good job) but the shower area is rather small and triangular shaped space not suitable for a very big sized person but not sure if other rooms have the same type of shower area. Great that the toilet seat can be warmed by pressing some buttons on the side.

The hotel has a laundry room on the 10th floor with a washing machine and a dryer.

Detergent is available too for a fee, need coins to operate all the machines, there's a coin machine where you can change your notes to coins.

On every floor, there's purified hot and cold water machine, so you dont need buy any mineral water, you can just use the tumbler in the fridge to refill water and use the coffee pot to make coffee or tea (they only provide tea but I brought my own 3 in 1 coffee mix). You can purchase coffee or snacks or instant noodle from the convenience shop located on the ground floor (sorry forgot to take photo of the convenience shop). You can also choose to eat or drink in the convenience shop after purchasing from them.