Exploring Busan: Cherry Blossom Festival, Dalmaji Hill, and more!
By Helene Lydia - May 06, 2017
Just by around one hour driving from Busan, you will reach
Jinhae-gu, a district in Changwon City and will be served with a magnificent
view of spring in Korea. It’s the Cherry Blossom festival in Jinhae that
obviously should not be missed by anyone! Jinhae is famous for the annual
cherry blossom festival every spring that showcasing the beautiful blooming
cherry blossom. It’s a 10-days-festivals with various of activities to
complement the beauty of the cherry blossom, such as military parade, street
performance and the mandatory food stalls. This year, the festival was held
from April 1st until 10th 2017. As we planned before the
trip, we went to the festival on April 6th, one day after we arrived
in Korea.
For comfort and convenience reason, we booked a jumbo taxi for 8
hours (I emailed the email address of the jumbo taxi driver given to me in the
first day). The cost was too ridiculous to tell, so I won’t tell you :’) I
guess and I believe it will be waaaaaay cheaper if we took the public
transportation. When I come back to Jinhae again, I will definitely use the
public transportation.
The traffic took us longer than one hour to reach Jinhae. Despite of
the tiring morning road trip, I was so mesmerized with the view throughout the
journey to Jinhae, and even more enchanted by the rows of cherry blossom trees in
our destination: Gyeonghwa station. It was PINK everywhere!
Gyeonghwa station was very crowded with the tourist while it was only
10 in the morning. Many people were queuing to take pictures with the signature
Korail locomotive. There were also many
food stalls that attracted our appetite, but we decided to exhaust ourself
first by taking tons of picture.
By the way, the weather on that day was still not cooperative with
us. It was raining in the moment we get on the cab and throughout our journey
to Jinhae. When we got off from the car, the rain became lighter. A moment
later, it became harder. We kept on open and close our umbrella. Luckily, we
found a little pagoda for grandparents to keep them dry and rest. The
pagoda was also very photogenic!
We grabbed a quick lunch in a food stall across the pagoda. I
ordered a beef soup with rice and a portion of the seafood pancake. After
lunch, we bought a corn dog and satay. The corn dog tasted so-so.
We planned to move to another place with cherry blossom trees in
Jinhae, the Yeojwacheon Stream.
The friendly oppa who spoke fluent English also recommended us to go some other
places that have other breath-taking cherry blossom view. However, we decided
to turn down the plan because we should take the public bus to reach the area.
Instead, we went back to Busan and chilled out in the famous road with many
cute cafes: Dalmaji Hill road!
We didn’t manage to explore the cafes in
Dalmaji Hill road, we just went into the Starbucks café that we crossed to save
time. It was foggy at that moment after the rain, and combined with the cherry
blossom trees along the road, the scene gave us a serenity vibe. It was beautiful.
Later in the evening, after grandparents
arrived safe and sound in the hotel, my mum and I continued our exploration in
our last night in Busan. We took the subway line 1 to Toseong station, went to
exit 6, turned right at the corner of the intersection, walked up straight
until the hospital was on my right side, waited a lil bit at the bus stop in
front of the hospital, and hop on to small bus number 2 or 2-2. The bus took us
to Gamcheon Culture Village! In my case, it was easier to get on the bus rather
than get off the bus haha. The stop to Gamcheon is quite tricky, so just asked
the locals by showing pictures of any sign of Gamcheon Culture Village and they
will tell you where to get off (finger-crossed). We arrived there around 6 pm
and almost all the shops already close... we should’ve come earlier… But in return, we got the whole Gamcheon for
us! No photobomb!
To go back, just take the same bus (no 2 or 2-2)
to the opposite direction. We got off on the hospital area where we get on in
the first place. Because we still had time, we continued the journey to BIFF
square in Jagalchi station, exit 7. We just walked around the area, went into
the small shops, bought K-Pop CDs for my bro and had some Korean street foods before we went back to hotel. I
will share you the street foods I had in Korea in a separated post, so stay
tune😉
With our limited time and the bad weather, we
only managed to visit few places throughout 3D2N in Busan. Overall, Busan was
really impressive for me. However, there are still lots of place I need to
explore in Busan: the beaches, temples, parks, and of course the cute cafes and
tasty restaurants. I will come back again to Busan to experience more of their culture💕 But first, let’s see what we can do in Seoul!
Stay tune for my next post! xx
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