What to do when it rains in Busan, South Korea

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Outside of the Jalgachi Fish Market

Unfortunately, we woke to driving rain our first full day in Busan. Hmm. When you travel, bad weather happens, so good to have a Plan B. In Busan, Plan B was the hop-on/hop-off bus. We were pretty sure that we weren’t going to do much hopping off unless we saw shelter nearby, but what the heck? At least we’d see some of the city and we were kind of ready for a slow day anyway. Busan offers several hop-on/hop-off buses and, happily, they all pick up by Busan Station very near our hotel.

After viewing a couple of brochures and comparing routes, we chose the BUTI Bus. Although it claimed to offer free onboard wi-fi, our bus had none. Strike one. The app I’d downloaded didn’t work either. Strike two. The tour was mostly in Korean. Probably should be Strike Three, but we were in for the long haul, so we stayed on. Given our experience, I’d try the other hop-on/hop-off called the Busan City Bus Tour. [This is really confusing as both the BUTI Bus and this other bus use the phrase “Busan City Bus Tour. There may be a third bus also using the same name. The price is the same for all of these buses, 15,000 Korean won (approximately $15).) We got off at the last stop which was the underground shopping area near Gwangbok (Exit 6).] We were only idly curious about the shopping, but we hoped to be able to use the sheltered areas to reach the Jagalchi Fish Market. read more