Korea Travelogue: Day 12 - Gamcheon Cultural Village
Our second and final day in Busan was spent at a famous landmark - Gamcheon Culture Village! We had a very good night's rest at Popcorn Hostel and left in very good spirits. The journey to Gamcheon Culture Village is quite far from Haeeundae (takes around an hour by metro FOL) so we set off quite early as we wanted to spend as much time as possible to cover everything in the village. And since Busan Station was along the way, we transited at that station to deposit our luggage in the storage lockers found inside the KTX station and head off to Toseong Station.
As usual, got sidetracked by food. This pastry is actually filled with delicious custard cream and everytime you pass through a metro station, there's always a stall selling this there! And the wretched smells from the freshly made pastries just got to us so we bought 1 portion to share and munch along the way lol (FYI you can consume food and drinks aboard Korea's trains).
Lunch stop before heading up to the cultural village. This is Kimbap Cheonguk by the way, which is a chain store selling different Korean dishes.
I had the fermented bean paste soup/doenjang jiggae! Yummeh and one of my favourite Korean dishes because it really fills my tummy up!
Directions
Take Subway Line 1 to Toseong Station and exit at Exit 6.
Turn right at the road junction and walk straight till you see a hospital on your right (Busan National Hospital).
The bus stop is right in front of the hospital. Take either Bus 2 or 2-2 and drop off at 감천문화마을.
Address for reference: 부산광역시 사하구 감내2로 177-11
*The only way to Gamcheon Cultural Village is by bus or taxi/car as it lies above a hill top.
When you alight from the bus, you should see this Tourist Information Center sitting right outside the road leading into the village. You can purchase the tourist map here for KRW 2,000. It'll make a good souvenir to keep while you hunt for the stamps all around the village.
I'll be very honest with you that I only know of this place because I watched Running Man and this venue was featured in one of the episodes xD
However you can be assured that your time spent here is worth it because the whole village is very fascinating in terms of their wall murals and structures built all around. It makes for a good place to have a fashion shoot really lol given the nice backdrop everywhere. You'll see why below in the pictures.
And.... the narcissist in all of us have been unleashed! Hence why the entire post is dedicated to our faces only featuring Gamcheon's nice sights LOLOLOL
It was an awesome day out for us with nice weather throughout :D
I really like how the tourist map allows you to explore the entire village while searching for the places to collect the stamps. It's really a good way for you to discover what may be hidden on off-beaten tracks. So anyway, we started going around to search for the stamps.
Here's how a typical stamp would look like sitting within the place indicated on the map. You just bring your map and stamp away!
Of course if it ends up looking shitty like how mine does, F your life really hahaha! The inkpads were pretty much dried out and I had trouble getting an even stamp at some stations. Sigh.
So apparently the cast of Infinity Challenge have visited here before.
2 Days 1 Night and of course, Running Man have filmed on-site at Gamcheon Culture Village before.
Anyhow, as you progress on reading this post, the pictures will show you which route we took to explore the entire village. It was hell trying to edit all the pictures because there were way too many!
Gamcheon Cultural Village's iconic colourful houses.
Another icon of the village is this Little Prince mural and his statue with the little fox.
Yup, mandatory tourist shot with the Little Prince and his foxy sidekick.
Sorry, had to milk the opportunity because this place is so picturesque! Everyone incl the locals were all busy taking pictures with the prince and fox statues so this is definitely a must-go photo spot.
Selfie included lol. Machiam my friend sia this Little Prince haha!
Here's Stella and the prince
Le bff and the prince
Have to include the bff's pictures with the prince because while moving onto the next location, she dropped her camera and her kit lens broke T_______T #hoyalensbrokeinBusan
So for the rest of the trip she had to make do with taking pictures with a zoom lens (it's quite funny actually haha!) or her mobile phone.
Calling her aunt to tell her about the demise of the kit lens.
Spamming all pictures taken with Hoya to commemorate its lens breaking. #dontkillmepleasehaha
Still talking... and Stella taking pictures lol
Ok they finally noticed me taking pictures HAHAHAHA!
This picture reminds me of Santorini in Greece (even though I've never been there before LOL). Anyone agree?
And the stamping continues.... Don't worry, you can definitely find all the places to collect the stamps. Just remember to follow the map!
The picture spamming continues. Like I said, too pretty not to take pictures in each corner really!
Welcome to Korea's Santorini ^^
The picture shows how awesome my hair was. I had specially gotten it dyed a few days before going to Korea and the colour was really intense for the first few days. But by the time we were in Busan, it was almost 2 weeks later and the colour was at its most natural stage so I really loved it then!
This place looks cool and calls for a photoshoot…
....tadah!
These were meant to be cats if I'm not mistaken. It was inside one of the locations to obtain a stamp but I cannot remember which one haha!
I would recommend proper footwear because Gamcheon Culture Village requires you to walk through the alleys both uphill and downhill so do take note not to wear any high-heels/slippers unless you're very confident yeah.
Last pit-stop for phototaking before we left the place. It's the starting point of the Running Man episode featuring Gamcheon Culture Village.
Time to say goodbye Gamcheon....
Yay we completed the entire visitation stamp collection! Wohoo~
“I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” – Rosalia de Castro
Made it back to Busan Station at around 3.30pm for the 5pm train back to Seoul. We bought our tickets in the morning while storing the baggage in the lockers. Please purchase the tickets earlier because they do get sold out from time to time yeah!
There was still time to kill before our train's departure so we had to find more food considering that lunch was already long digested by then haha. Paris Baguette it was then! Oh and I picked up some pumpkin chips from the Smoothie King outlet opposite for the train ride back since it was a 3 hour journey.
Till we meet again the next time Busan!
Made it back to Seoul at 8pm and we headed back to Myeongdong. Settled for dinner at this gamja-tang restaurant near our guesthouse.
And that's it for our short 2 day 1 night trip to Busan! Hope it's helpful in letting you see the sights of Busan. We definitely did not cover everything that Busan had to offer but here's some places that we didn't cover to consider if you'd like to make a trip to Busan:
Gwangbok-dong Cultural & Fashion Street
Taejongdae
Jalgalchi Market
Busan Aquarium