4 Nights in Busan – Day 3: Shinsegae Spa Land, Haeundae Beach, around Haeundae

Day 3: Shinsegae Spa Land, Haeundae Beach, around Haeundae

Shinsegae Spa Land
Address: 35, Centumnam-daero, Haeundae-gu, Busan

We didn’t plan much for day 3 other than the spa. Unfortunately Eugene wasn’t feeling too well in the morning so we decided that I would go for the spa/sauna alone while he waits for me in the mall (he ended up catching a movie). I was pretty worried that I might break any rules while in the spa so did a lot of googling the night before. I thought it’ll be helpful if I post some of my experience here to share with others who are worried as well.

We reached the Centum City mall a little earlier than 10am so it wasn’t open yet. It took us a while to find the entrance to the spa. Look for Exit 12 and walk all the way straight (see the map on this page for reference: https://www.koreatodo.com/shinsegae-centum-city-spa-land). We ended up asking the departmental store staff for help (one wasn’t particularly friendly oh well) and got to the entrance just fine.

Upon reaching the counter, you pay for your entry and the cashier will hand you a receipt with a number. This is the number that you need to remember. Upon entering, it will be a shoe locker area – head to your number, place your shoes inside the locker and remove the key at the locker. Then you use that key to enter the spa area.

Upon entering, head to the respective gender locker room. Again, look for your locker number and use that same key to open and lock your locker. Do note that in the locker room, there will be others who are changing or walking around in their birthday suits so don’t use any cameras for privacy.

After getting into your birthday suit (aka nude), and bring along your soap, shampoo, conditioner etc. For ladies, I headed to the “pool area” where the showers and scrubbing areas are at and look for an empty seat to sit and clean yourself.

After you are done washing up, you can head to the various hot spring pools to soak. There were about 6 of them and the outdoor ones but it was raining when I went so I wasn’t able to go to the outdoor pools.

After about 30minutes, I wore the given clothes and went to the mixed gender area. There were various hot rooms for you to enjoy and sweat it out!

My leg muscles were not so sore after that. Also tried the massage chair which made me relax after that.

As always, the “traditional” way to enjoy a Korean sauna is to buy sikhye (rice water) and eat boiled eggs!

Shinsegae Mall

After meeting up with Eugene, we had a quick meal at the foodcourt and tried their Jjajiangmyeon – a Korean version of the Chinese 炸酱面(zha jiang mian). I always thought that it would be salty but it was tasty! The sauce was made with a lot of mushrooms and I totally understood why people would eat it – I would too!

There were other stalls at the foodcourt and an ice skating rink if you would like to visit.

Haeundae Beach

We took the train back to Haeundae, and walked to the Haeundae Beach. There were various routes to the beach, but all in all it was about a 10mins walk from the Haeundae station.

It’s a big stretch of the beach and we had fun walking around and watching the locals play in the water.

There were floats provided as well which I thought was quite a nice touch!

Be sure to also take a picture by the “Haeundae” sign.

60계치킨 (60 Chicken)

We found this fried chicken place operated by non-locals by the street along the way back to our hotel. Their name is called “60 chickens” because they only sell 60 chickens everyday.

I wanted to mention it as it’s pretty good! Do check it out.

Busan Day 3 Places of Interests Address
Shinsegae Spa Land 52, Jagalchihaean-ro, Jung-gu, Busan
Haeundae Beach 203, Gamnae 2-ro, Saha-gu, Busan
60계치킨 (60 Chicken) 부산광역시 해운대구 중동 1393-61
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4 Nights in Busan – Day 2: KSGI Busan, Jagalchi Market (부산 자갈치시장), Busan Gamcheon Village, Songdo Beach Skywalk, BIFF + Kyochon

We covered quite a few places on the 2nd day in Busan! My calves and thighs were seriously screaming throughout the day (had also walked a lot in Seoul).

Day 2: KSGI Busan, Jagalchi Market (부산 자갈치시장), Busan Gamcheon Village, Songdo Beach Skywalk, BIFF + Kyochon

KSGI Busan Haeundae Hope Cultural Centre

Whenever I travel, I’ll try to see if I can pop-in a visit to the local Soka Gakkai centre. This time, our itinerary in Seoul was quite packed so I decided to just have a visit in Busan instead.

Of course, we brought the official letter from HQ over and had a quick visit! The staff and members were friendly – I don’t think many people from Singapore visit that kaikan – so they asked if they could have a picture with us.

I particularly liked their kids room next to the main meeting area for kids to hang out while their parents were attending a meeting!

Jagalchi Market (부산 자갈치시장)
Address: 52, Jagalchihaean-ro, Jung-gu, Busan
Opening hours: 5:00-22:00 (2nd floor restaurants from 9:00)
Closed on 1st & 3rd Tuesdays of the month.

This was a highlight for me. I terribly want to eat seafood in Busan as I’ve watched way too many videos on Youtube about how nice they are.

We don’t really know what to do – as we realised that in Busan, most people don’t speak English and my terrible Korean language knowledge was not going to get us anywhere. There was a buffet at the top floor of Jagalchi Market that we wanted to go but in the end Eugene said to just try the restaurants at level 2.

Luckily we did as the food there was cheaper (I felt) and with a variety. We ate at one of the first few eateries we saw and the staff kept trying to sell us the set as it was better. I was personally a bit unsure about it until the food came – it definitely was more value for money to order the set and we saw that the locals all had ordered the same set as ours (do what the locals do right?)

The food was delicious! And definitely worth the money that we paid. Pictures below to feast your eyes to.






Busan Gamcheon Village (부산 감천문화마을)
Address: 203, Gamnae 2-ro, Saha-gu, Busan
We then took a short bus ride to Busan Gamcheon Village which was situated on a hill! The hill is quite tall too so we had to basically walk almost vertically (ok it felt like it) upwards some steep roads all the way up in order to see the view. Friends who have been there had told me that it was a hike and they weren’t kidding.

You can purchase a map if you like at the visitor centre and collect stamps from various checkpoints along the village which was pretty fun.
Certain photo spots (like The Little Prince one) was very popular and there was a queue for it. We went to the one next to it where surprisingly not many people even noticed it.


The view from the top, however, is worth the hike.

We spent about 1.5 hours there.

Songdo Beach (송도해수욕장)
Address: 50, Songdohaebyeon-ro, Seo-gu, Busan
We took another short bus ride and a 15 mins walk from a bus terminal near Busan Gamcheon Village to Songdo Beach.

The highlight at Songdo Beach was the Skywalk, which allows you to walk out to the sea on a bridge.
There were loads of beach activities too – people were swimming, taking their mini electric boats out, and taking lots and lots of pictures. There were some statues that you could take pictures with.

You could also take a cable car (which we didn’t) to see the beach and travel from one side to the other.

BIFF Square (BIFF 광장 (구, PIFF 광장))
We took another quick bus ride (back to near Jagalchi Market) but this time walked to BIFF Square.
BIFF stands for Busan International Film Festival. I didn’t know that the BIFF Square was open all year round (I thought it only was there during the film festival) so it was quite nice to be there.

There were quite a lot of street food and stalls for you to shop and eat there.We aren’t really shoppers so we just had a look around and saw people drinking Gong Cha so decided to head to Gong Cha to see what the difference is between the Singapore bubble teas and Korean ones.

The menu was in Korean (I will definitely learn the words for “take away”, “order”, “payment” etc before I go back to Korea again) and my limited Korean (and Eugene’s app) only allowed us to figure out what the drinks were. We accidentally ordered bubble teas to drink at the cafe so we did.

Something we learnt in Seoul – if you are not taking out your order, the orders will be in reusable plates/cups. This is an environmentally friendly initiative I guess so try not to have takeouts wherever possible!

Kyochon Chicken
Special mention here!
6 years ago when I went to South Korea with my family (it was with a tour group), we got the chance to eat Kyochon fried chicken in Jeju. I’ve NEVER had such nice fried chicken before and even after trying different Korean fried chickens in Singapore, I’ve never found that taste again. Until when we went back to Korea I guess 😀

We ordered their half-and-half chicken, which came with pickled radish, and we bought some beer from the convenience store just at the first level of where we were staying. Chimaek 치맥 it is!

Busan Day 2 Places of Interests Address
Jagalchi Market (부산 자갈치시장) 52, Jagalchihaean-ro, Jung-gu, Busan
Busan Gamcheon Culture Village (부산 감천문화마을) 203, Gamnae 2-ro, Saha-gu, Busan
Songdo Beach (송도해수욕장) 50, Songdohaebyeon-ro, Seo-gu, Busan
BIFF Square (BIFF 광장 (구, PIFF 광장)) 4, Nampo-gil, Jung-gu, Busan
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