I didn’t book a very early train, thank god, because I thought I want to maximize breakfast time in Seoul (read: cafes). Joke’s on me in the end because as it turns out, they don’t open very early and even in the Yeonnam-dong area which is full of cafes, I had very limited choices. So I went with a name which I saw the day before (they had a branch at Hannamdong too) and had decent reviews, and headed over. Even this place didn’t open that early so I really had a rather tight window prior to my train ride. 

Oh the good news is that I woke up feeling alright and whatever ailment I had the night before hadn’t escalated into something more sinister so all’s good. 

There wasn’t much to do though, because it wasn’t a full scale cafe and was just a bakery of sorts. So I was done in about an hour, thought I wanted to get something a bit more substantial to fuel my train ride later so headed back to Hongdae, intention was to get either Eggdrop or Isaac Toast but neither had something that caught my eye so in the end I just went back to grab my luggage, and headed off to Seoul station. This little exploration had left me with a very tight window though so I had to rush a bit, instead of heading into Lotte Mart to grab one of their fantastic hot items I resorted to Lotteria again hahaha. Oh right I ended up not going to any Lotte Mart at any point in my trip too, again didn’t find the need to revisit. 

Arrived in Busan! Been itching to come back here because I did feel that the previous time round we didn’t go too many places (again) so I really treated it as a new place I’ve never been to. Hotel was the designated (more) budget choice for the trip and I wanted it close to Busan station for obvious reasons (we stayed in Haeundae the last time round and god it was far from anything which may have contributed to the fact that we didn’t visit too many places, along with the short duration we had). But it was still a subway stop away although bus was a lot easier because literally every bus travel that route. 

Low key amused when checking in because I got offered another room upgrade alongside with a voucher for welcome drink. The latter I sort of was expecting even if I don’t remember that it was stated at the time of booking because I do know there are hotels who will offer this for my Expedia status. But I would find out later on (a couple of months later when booking something else) that the upgrade was also part of the perks for my status, like oh that explains a lot. 

Made it to the beach. I think there was only one word to summarize the couple of hours I was in the vicinity and that’s “windy”. Really blow until I suspect my life (go translate it to Chinese literally) and as I would find out in a couple of days this wasn’t even the worst lolol. But I was constantly looking for shelter from the wind because my resolve to catch sunset and take night pics wasn’t blown away so I had an hour or so to kill. 

Back to the vicinity of Busan station and surprisingly the planned dinner was…pizza. Leejaemo Pizza was apparently the best in Korea and there’s a branch near the station. Sadly some of the flavors I wanted had sold out, and I did contemplate if one whole pizza for myself was too much in light of my latest diet but oh well yolo. And I can testify that it is one of the better ones I’ve had, what do you know. 

Oh right I ordered takeout because um don’t want to show my glutton side in a restaurant lol but I finished the pizza in one sitting, over episodes of Emerald Hill I might add. And of course called it a day.