(English only today, – sorry ;))

During Golden Week this year I went to Busan for a few days. As we were already in the south of Japan, in order to visit Arita, South Korea was just a ferry-ride away, and I also wanted to visit a good friend there that I hadn’t seen for a long time.
It was my second time in the port city, already, but it didn’t cease to amaze me again with it’s beautiful bright colors, delicious and cheap food (although it has gotten much more expensive since my first visit in 2013…) and the somewhat rough but hearty mentality of it’s people (oh how I wish to become fluent in Korean one day, to be able to communicate more!). Our little trip really inspired my inner (photo) artist, so this time I would like to present it as a photo story on this blog:

We arrived on a sunny Monday and the first thing we had to see was of course…

…the Busan Tower, the city’s landmark. Couples can write a message and leave a ‘love luck’ on the fence there, but instead of being too much of a tourist…

…we soon headed to a restaurant for a delicious typically Korean meal. It was spicy and huge…

…and sadly didn’t leave enough space in our stomachs for the street food in Nampo-dong.

The streets were decorated for the Lotus Lantern festival to celebrate Buddha’s birth Mid-May…

…but we already had our next destination in mind: The Gamcheon Culture Village…

…one of Busan’s poorest residential areas that has been transformed into a touristy area of street art.

There was much to explore: Strange things…

…quirky decorations…

…wall art…

…a beautiful view…

…cute things and little alleys…

…the very popular ‘The Little Prince’ statue…

…where you had to queue up for a picture (which I couldn’t resist, of course)…

…and the king (or queen?) of the neighborhood that graciously posed for a picture.

The next day started slowly, while we waited in our hotel for a typhoon to pass. Luckily, around noon the sun came out and we headed to Seomyeon, a university area…

…where we found a cute little coffee shop with an amazingly delicious hot chocolate.

Afterwards we went to a cheap Korean massage place, where we got a not so relaxing (ouch), but probably effective massage, and ended our day exhausted but happy…

…with a huge (!) vegan (!) healthy meal. That gave us enough strength for an eventful next day,…

…where we saw beautiful lanterns all over the place…

…at Haedung Yonggungsa Temple (http://www.yongkungsa.or.kr/en/), one of the most famous temples in Korea…

…that is beautifully located near the ocean.

After seeing even more lanterns…

…we decided to head to a small hiking spot near the beach, which gave us a splendid ocean view of Busan.

Our day ended with a few drinks…

…and Busan’s famous night view at Gwangalli beach.

The next day, Thursday, was already our last day in Busan. In the morning we went to Haeundae beach…

…which was still a little bit too cold for swimming, but nice for a walk.

We said goodbye to the beach…

And so our little Busan adventure came to an end 🙂