Day 78 — Busan - Tom and Marilee Retire to the Road

November 19, 2025

Day 78 — Busan

Marilee here, with a wonderful, action-packed day in Busan to report on!

After a rather wild night at sea — the ship was rolling and heaving through big waves for hours, everything in our cabin creaked and groaned from the strain — we woke up to clear skies at dawn in Busan harbour.

The ship sat at the dock for a couple of hours before passengers were allowed to disembark (presumably some inspection or administrative paperwork gets done during that time?). In any case, it gave us time to have breakfast— again as the sole patrons of the onboard restaurant (someone should get this ferry line a deal with White Spot, that sure gets the customers in the door on BC Ferries), and to enjoy the view of Busan.

We cleared immigration and customs quite speedily, and were outside the ferry terminal by 8:30am, with about 2km ahead of us to get to our hotel. We were wondering what the reaction from the front desk would be if we tried to check in at 9am, but, as it turned out, that 2km proved very difficult to navigate. Google maps doesn’t really work in South Korea (the government blocks it for security reasons) and the substitute app, Naver maps, seems less useful. It routed us onto the approach to an expressway, which we luckily realized before things got too hairy, and we had to backtrack and reroute, eventually getting ourselves to the central train station. We walked the bikes from there, as the traffic was hectic and we didn’t really know where we were going — plus it gave us the opportunity to gawk at our surroundings like a couple of country bumpkins — the streetscape in central Busan was pretty impressive!

Eventually it occurred to us that the street we were on seemed to be endless, with no intersections or side streets branching off it. Off to one side, up on a hillside, we could see the top of a building, and a sign: Commodore Hotel. Our hotel! But the street we were on carried us past the vision of our hotel, offering no exit. We figured eventually it would connect to some other street, so we stuck with it and sure enough eventually we were able to branch off onto a side street — which promptly began to behave in exactly the same fashion as the first street, just sailing on endlessly. Well, in the end we got to the hotel, but it was a struggle that was only solved by noticing an elevator that took us from one street to the street above it, and then a lot of backtracking. Busan, it turns out, is incredibly hilly, with streets linked by tortuously steep staircases winding every which way.

It was mid-morning by the time we arrived at the hotel, where they graciously agreed to store our bikes and bags in the lobby until check in time that afternoon. And what a lobby! The Commodore is an incredibly ornate, exuberantly painted and decorated hotel. The grand lobby has stone tile panelled walls and a recessed ceiling with painted panels of lions and dragons and birds. It was amazing and overwhelming — especially since we’ve become so accustomed to minimalist Japanese design over the past several weeks.

Having safely stowed our belongings we set off for more exploration. First up on the to-do list was becoming adequately caffeinated, for which we returned to the area around the central train station, where a bakery called Paris Baguette had caught my eye earlier. Coffees and pastries, please, and keep ‘em coming!

Then it was on to some serious city exploration: with less than 48 hours in Busan, we wanted to see as much as we could. We rambled around the streets of Chinatown, which seemed to be transforming into Russia town, with many restaurants and stores advertising themselves in Cyrillic characters. Then we roamed further into the streets beyond, which quickly took us uphill, climbing from street to street on the staircases that are threaded everywhere through the neighborhoods.

Busan’s Chinatown in the morning — not it’s busiest time.

How badly do we want to find out what’s at the top of these stairs?

We reached the top of one perilously steep climb, after summiting multiple levels of stairs, only to discover a tiny funicular running at the top. So we rode down in style along with several slightly bemused neighborhood ladies, who no doubt thought we were cracked for climbing all the way up only to go straight back down.

It was getting on into the early afternoon and we were starting to think about lunch, which made Tom think about fish markets. So off we headed towards the port to find the fish market. And wow — like everything else today it was massive and over the top — street after street lined with vendors selling what seemed like an entire ocean’s worth of fish. And that was before we even got into the actual market building.

It didn’t take long before a vendor had got Tom’s attention and before we really knew what had happened we’d bought a bunch of shellfish and were being led upstairs to a restaurant to get it cooked. Turns out the entire upper level of the market was a dining area, with different kitchens serving up the fish the diners had selected below. Around us were several big rowdy groups eating massive amounts of seafood and washing it down with equally massive amounts of soju.

Our lunch was no competition for the serious feasting going on around us, but it was delicious and more than enough for us. We left full and satisfied, and after a few more blocks of fish market sightseeing, we found ourselves in the midst of maze of clothing market streets, where we got thoroughly lost.

It took some effort to extricate ourselves from the market, but eventually we managed. We returned to the hotel in late afternoon, ready to check in and relax for a while. And we relaxed in style, as for reasons mysterious to us we were given a free upgrade to a corner suite. Wow! After weeks of Japanese hotel rooms so small only one person could walk around at a time, we seemed to have acres of room. A seating area! A balcony! A bathroom that you don’t have to turn sideways to get into! I relaxed so much it took some doing to talk me into leaving the room for dinner.

The view from the 14th floor was spectacular

Eventually Tom coaxed me out, and we found a nearby Korean bbq place, where we celebrated being in a brand new country by grilling and eating a whole bunch of protein. Then we got back to the hotel as fast as possible to continue reveling in luxury.

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