Visiting Haeundae Beach and Taking A Cruise Around Oryukdo

Although we were visiting Busan in July, it wasn’t exactly ideal beach weather on the day we were there, as it was a bit overcast and windy.  Nevertheless, there was quite a crowd of people hanging out at the beach and enjoying the day the best they could.

Haeundae Beach (해운대해수욕장) is likely the most famous beach in Korea.  It doesn’t look like your typical beach resort though, as businesses and roads line the area, which I feel would make it a bit difficult to relax with cars honking in the background, a mere couple of blocks away.

Haeundae Beach also offers a great view of the Gwangandaegyo Bridge (광안대교).  As dusk settles, the bridge and the surrounding area is lit up for an amazing view.

 A popular outing is to take a cruise around Oryukdo (오륙도) . The view of Oryukdo changes depending on the time of day and the tide.  At times, there may be only 5 islands visible, but at other times, 6 will appear.  Hence the name Oryukdo (five six island). 

We did the typical tourist thing of boarding a ferry to take us around Oryukdo.  However, we probably should have chosen a better day to do this.  It was cold and extremely windy, which made it much less enjoyable than it could have been.  The commentary was in Korean, so we didn’t understand a single word of what was being said either.  The only upside was that aside from the 4 of us, there were only a few other people on the boat, making it easy to move around to take pictures.

Haeundae Beach is definitely worth visiting, as it is one of the top attractions of Busan.  We didn’t actually spend too much time on the beach so I’m not entirely sure what that is like, although I have heard that although the beach offers pure white sand, it is quite rough.