Busan travel info

At 5am in Jagalchi Market's auction hall, traders in rubber boots pass crates of hairtail with finger signals, while across the road the pork-bone broth is already rolling in the gukbap pots. Busan is a port city stacked up its hillsides: Gamcheon's painted roofs step down the slope like a staircase, and cargo ships slide under Yeongdo Bridge. People here talk faster and louder than in Seoul, and you get the idea the moment a market auntie drops an extra fish cake into your cup and tells you to eat up.

Forty minutes east on the subway, the mood flips. Glass towers close to a hundred storeys rise behind the sand at Haeundae, and at Gwangalli people spread picnic mats every evening to watch the lights come on along Gwangan Bridge. A bottle of soju at a second-floor raw-fish restaurant facing the bridge is a perfectly ordinary Busan Friday.

Flying in from abroad, you land at Gimhae and ride the light rail and subway into town; from Seoul, the KTX reaches Busan Station in about two and a half hours. Four subway lines tie together the old port around Nampo-dong, Seomyeon and Haeundae. Navigate with Naver Map or KakaoMap, because Google Maps won't give you walking directions here.

Gimhae International Airport (PUS)

Busan Station (KTX/SRT) (KTX)