Arisa in Japan and Busan

Japan

With four friends, I finally went on my first trip during my exchange to Japan. This was my eighth time in Japan, but the first for most of my friends, so I recommended many places to them that I thought they’d enjoy. For this trip, we prepared a jam-packed itinerary, in which I averaged over 17,000 steps a day. 

We did many touristy things such as going to Tokyo DisneySea and teamLab Planets, and did a lot of shopping. My favorite thing that we did was our day trip to Kamakura. While planning this day trip I had thought I’d never been to Kamakura before, but once we got to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shine, I realized that I had actually been there during my eighth-grade Japan trip. Kamakura is two hours away from where we were staying in Tokyo and I think going there was completely worth it. When going to Japan I love to explore areas away from the city. In Kamakura, we went to a bamboo forest which cost 1000 yen (~$6.43) for the entry + tea ticket. The bamboo forest was way smaller than I thought it would be, but it was still very pretty. With the tea ticket, we were able to look at the bamboo while drinking a cup of matcha with sugar cookies. The vibes here were so nice. In Kamakura, I also got to see a beach for the first time since leaving Hawaii.

A major difference that I noticed on this trip between Japan and Korea is that public transportation is a lot more expensive and complicated in Japan. On my previous trips to Japan, I had pretty exclusively taken the train and never the bus. I never thought that there was a specific reason why, but this trip made me realize how unreliable the buses are in Japan. We often chose routes that used buses in order to shorten our time walking, but the buses were often not on time, and it was difficult to find the stops. Further, our Airbnb was not near a JR train station, meaning that we always had to transfer between lines, increasing our travel costs. Despite these transportation challenges, Japan remains my favorite place to travel to. 

Busan

After Japan, I also went on a trip to Busan with three friends. As I’ve never been to Busan and had been focused on the Japan trip, my friends thankfully planned our Busan itinerary. In order to get to and from Busan, we took the Korail which took 2-3 hours to and from Seoul Station.           

On this trip, we primarily did activities and sightseeing. Activities included the Skyline Luge, Haundae to Cheongsapo Sky Capsule, and Songdo Marine Cable Car. We also went to famous areas in Busan such as the Gamcheon Culture Village, Huinnyeoul Culture Village, and Gwangalli Beach. Of course, one of my favorite places that we visited was the Miffy Cafe. We were able to see a pretty view of the sunset from this cafe and the cakes were yummy as well. I also ate the best mandu I’ve had so far in Korea at a random food stall at BIFF Square. Something that I would not recommend doing is going to BUSAN X the Sky which is the second-highest building in Korea. The cost was ~$17 and it was difficult to take pictures with the glare and blurriness of the glass windows. It was overall an underwhelming experience.

A lot of people talk about how many stairs there are in Seoul and how wild the bus rides are, but in Busan, those elements are substantially worse. To get to a lot of scenic viewpoints, you have to take a bumpy bus ride and walk up flights of stairs. Also, as Busan is near the ocean, many of the restaurants primarily sell seafood. As someone who doesn’t typically enjoy seafood, I decided to try some new dishes such as grilled abalone and abalone porridge which to my surprise were pretty yummy. It was cool to visit an area in Korea outside of Seoul and I would definitely recommend going. Busan is good. 

First Snow

It started snowing in Korea! While I’d seen snow before, I still immediately threw my puffer over my pajamas and ran outside to see the first snow outside my dorm. Definitely an unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime, “I can’t believe I’m in Korea” moment. The shift from autumn to winter feels like it happened so quickly.

Thoughts

The amount of different things that I’ve done in the past few weeks is actually unreal to think about. With it snowing, I can really feel the clock ticking down at the time I have left in Korea... Thanks for reading <3