Author: OTRAdmin November 8, 2023

Today was a transit day with a 6am start to take a train to Kansai airport which is on an artificial island about an hour out of Osaka. The airport transfer was one of the fastest I have done though there was very little in the departure lounge which appeared to cater for just the two budget airlines – Peach and Jeju Air.

The uneventful flight was just over an hour and the transit into South Korea was also very quick and efficient with very little attention paid to visas (for Thais) or QR codes we had to acquire in advance for Covid procedures.

We grabbed a couple of local travel cards (T-Money) and topped them up before taking a train into Busan. The Korean rail network is also very efficient but nowhere near as extensive as Japan’s so it was a bit of a hike from the subway station to the hotel.

The first issue was the hotel which wouldn’t let us check in until 5pm. However, this gave us time to explore Gwangali Beach and the surrounding streets for potential eateries and minimarts for supplies.

Being a tourist area primarily for Chinese and Japanese, there were a lot of pricey seafood and Japanese-style restaurants and bars. Surprisingly, eating and drinking in Korea appears to be more expensive than it was in Japan!

The hotel finally let us in as the sun was going down over the tower block cityscape that fringed the beach. The entire bay and bridge were lit up after dark giving me a chance to test out the new camera.

Previous: Osaka Part 2
Next: Busan, Gamcheon