Busan in a Day: Gamcheon to Haeundae, the Complete Route

Busan is the second-largest city in South Korea and it spends most of its press attention being not Seoul. People who haven't been there think of it as a smaller, sleepier Seoul with a beach. People who have been there know better: it's a port town with serious food, sharp hills, a film festival, the country's largest fish market, and one of those genuine hangover stories where the city wakes up on a Saturday looking faintly embarrassed about Friday night. We had four days. This is the day-one starter pack: the route I'd give a friend with only one full day.

How do you get from Seoul to Busan?

The KTX bullet train from Seoul Station takes 2 hours and 42 minutes at £41 each one-way. Sit on the right for the green corridor of central Korea. The trip is part of the experience: the moment Seoul thins out into the green of central Korea is when you realise this country has space. Book on KorailTalk or at the station. Sundays sell out two weeks ahead.

What time should you visit Gamcheon Culture Village?

Before 11am. Gamcheon is the village in the foothills that used to be a slum and is now a gallery of stacked, pastel-coloured houses. It's been called Korea's Lego village. That's accurate. There are selfie sticks. There's also a genuine community still living in these houses, and a network of stairs and alleys that, if you walk in any direction other than the main path for thirty minutes, gets you to viewpoints over the bay where you'll be the only person there. Budget two hours.

Where should you eat lunch in Busan?

Gwangbokdong Food Street is the strip of stools and steam in the centre of Nampo-dong where elderly Korean women hand out bowls of milmyeon (cold wheat noodles) and bibimmyeon (spicy glass noodles) to a crowd of office workers and grandfathers. Sit down at any stall that's busy. Don't read the menu, point at what someone else is having. The bowls cost about 7,000 won (£3.80) and you eat in twelve minutes flat.

From there, walk into Gukje Market (Korea's largest traditional market) and Tin Can Alley right next to it. Buy hotteok if you have no discipline. Hotteok is a deep-fried pancake stuffed with seeds, brown sugar syrup and cinnamon, and the BIFF Square version is genuinely the best in Korea. They cost a pound. You'll buy two.

Is Jagalchi Fish Market worth visiting in Busan?

Two streets south from BIFF Square you'll hit Jagalchi Fish Market, the entire reason Busan exists as a city. Ground floor is a wet market, floor two is restaurants. Walk the ground floor for thirty minutes watching octopus get scooped from tanks and ten-year-old men gut sea bream, and then go upstairs and eat.

The drill: pick a fish from a tank downstairs, pay a per-kilo price, take the fish upstairs to the second-floor restaurants, and they'll cook it sashimi-style with scattered banchan. Two of us, two beers, one decent flatfish: around 70,000 won (£38), walking out very happy.

What should you do at Haeundae Beach?

By 3pm, get on the subway heading east to Haeundae (thirty-five minutes on the green line). In October the beach is chilly but walkable. The point of going isn't a swim. It's the sand, the sea wind that smells like seaweed in a good way, and the scale of a Korean beach city you didn't expect to exist. Walk Dongbaekseom Island next to it for a forty-minute loop with a small temple at the end.

Where should you watch sunset in Busan?

Get a taxi (15,000 won, ten minutes) to The Bay 101, the yacht club at the western end of Haeundae. It's free to walk in. Order a single beer at the bar, stand on the marina-side terrace, and watch the sun drop behind the city skyline reflected in the water. It's one of the genuine Instagram backdrops of Asia. We were one of about four foreigners there. Everyone else was Korean office workers on a Friday night, which is exactly the kind of crowd you want around you.

What about dinner in Busan?

Back in Seomyeon, where the neon comes on at 7pm. We ate samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly, you do it yourself at the table over a charcoal grill, with lettuce wraps and kimchi and soju) for about £20 a head with two bottles of soju and a large beer. After dinner, walk Seomyeon Street of Youth. We did one bar, decided we were not 22, and went home with smiles.

How much does a day in Busan cost for two people?