Haeundae

July 10, Sunday – Ryan, Yushu, Eileen, Jong In, Jong In’s senior(Suk) and I went to Grand Hotel, Haeundae for swimming. Haeundae is a very famous beach in Busan. It is a hotspot during summer and daily visitors can reach up to around millions of people. We met Jong In and Suk at the subway and took the subway to Dongbaek station. The hotel is not right beside the beach, but very near to it.

The fee for the swimming pool is 6,000 won each for adult. However, since Soak oppa work there before, we were able to get a discount of 1,500 won, meaning 4,500 won each. The swimming pool is located at the 6th floor of the hotel. At reception, we collected the keys to our lockers. All the lockers have numbers. The entrance is divided into 2 parts – men and women. Inside the women entrance, there are many sections – lockers, places to dry hair, shower room and toilet. At the place to dry hair, hair dryers are provided. We are not allowed to wear shoes inside here. There are many lockers and mirrors in there. There is a vending machine for drinks inside as well, but it is rather expensive. The ladies here are very open minded. Most of them walk around naked and changed clothes right in front of the locker. It seems to be something normal for them. It is a must to wear swimming suits and caps when swimming.

The swimming pool is not very big, only average. Suk oppa helped us to borrow some swimming caps and goggles as most of us do not have them. There is a children’s swimming there with slides. There is a separated small pool with warm water only for women as well. There are 2 workers standing there, guarding. However, it does not seem to be a bother to them. The pool was rather crowded as there were many people swimming there. We tied the keys of our lockers to our legs and begun swimming

Towers are provided. Thus, we do not need to use our own towers. However, we need to use our own shampoo. In the shower room, everyone bath together, naked. It is very unusual in Malaysia, but it is something very normal here. They do not look at each other when bathing, so it is nothing to be embarrassed about. However, I am still unable to get use to it and bath in my swimming suit.

There is an ATM machine at the lobby with visa interlink. I tested out my Maybank card right before we departed at 5.30pm and it was working perfectly fine.

Next, we have a walk at a park beside Haeundae beach. It was a rocky beach, there are many pine trees there and the air is refreshing. The view is nice; too bad we cannot go down to have a closer look as they were having a small renovation there. We attempted to go down but were stopped by 2 young police officers. There are renovations going on for the coming APEC meeting that is going to be held in November.

After that, we went to have a walk at the famous Haeundae beach. It is plain beach, nothing special to be noted. The beach is very long beach and the sand is kind of rough. It was drizzling that day, the wind and waves are quite strong, quite windy. Not many people were doing sports activities there. The Haeundae aquarium is located just beside the beach. The entrance fee is rather expensive, around 12,000 won, so we did not visit it. There were a few safety guards sitting along the beach. There are many hotels near the beach, but none are right beside the beach, like in Tanjung Tokong, Penang.

Then, we had lunch at a shop near the beach. We had mandu and noodle with “lala” for dinner. It is not spicy and the taste is quite nice, not very salty or plain. It costs 4,000 won each.

We went to the shopping complex near by after dinner. The cinema there is very big and grand, totally different from the one we went before in Nampo Dong. There is a place called Horrorwood, to see real horror shows. It is expensive, around 8,000 won each. After a scroll, we headed back to Naengjong by subway.

On our way back, we visited Bluemoon, a Chinese Fusion Soju Club. It is a shop for soju and hof. Soju is Korean wine. I do not know what is hof, but it seems to be something close to beer. It was not a bad place, there are no disco or singing or drunken people there. It is like a restaurant, but the atmosphere is a bit different due to the lighting and interior design.

Suk oppa ordered 2 bottles of 7-up and a medium sized bottle of Chinese alcohol. The percentage of alcohol is 50%. I only took a sip of it; it was rather too much for me, so I took 7-up and plain water instead. There were some other side dishes and a big plate of “char siu” (barbecued pork) and slice cucumber. There was a small plate of sauce for that dish as well. The dish is not warm, rather old, but its taste is very Malaysia-like. We played some Korean games. Suk oppa ordered 2 more bottles of 7-up and a small bottle of alcohol drink later on. This bottle of alcohol contained 60% of alcohol. Jong In and Suk oppa treated us for this and it cost 22,000 won.