I’m Min. I live in Gwangalli (광안리), in Busan’s Suyeong district, and I write this site from there.
I started it for a plain reason. Most English writing about Busan stops at three beaches and a photogenic hillside, and the city I walk around every day is much bigger than that. The stretch I know best runs along Metro Line 2: Suyeong-gu, Nam-gu and Haeundae-gu. Gwangalli and Millak. Daeyeon-dong, where the students eat. The cliff path at Igidae. Haeundae, Cheongsapo, Dalmaji Hill. And the ordinary streets in between that never make anyone’s list, where you find the shop that has been frying the same thing for thirty years.
I write about those three districts first because I’m in them every week and can check things on foot. Nampo-dong, Yeongdo, Gamcheon, Dongnae and Gijang come up too, and I’ll write them properly as I get there rather than summarising a page someone else wrote. If a guide covers somewhere I haven’t been recently, it says so.
What I want to pass on isn’t a ranking of sights. It’s how things here actually work: what a dish is and why it’s eaten that way, why a shop closes when it does, what a sign is telling you, which rule at the bathhouse is real and which one you imagined. That’s the part that makes a place stop feeling foreign, and it’s the part guidebooks skip.
Min is a pen name. I’m not affiliated with any tourism office, hotel, or business I write about.
What you’ll find here
- Neighborhoods — Gwangalli, Millak, Namcheon, Daeyeon-dong, Igidae, Haeundae and Cheongsapo, with the rest of the city added as I cover it properly. What each area is for, what it feels like at 9pm rather than at noon, the festivals that belong to it, and how to spend a day there.
- Glossary, Etiquette desk and Seasonal calendar are reference pages I keep updating.
How I work
I check things against the source, not against other blogs
Fares, opening hours, festival dates and rules come from the body responsible for them: Busan Metropolitan City and the district offices, the Busan Transportation Corporation, Korail, festival organisers, temple offices, museums. Where the useful page only exists in Korean, I read it in Korean and link it anyway. Every guide carries the month I checked, at the bottom.
I don’t rewrite brochures
Nothing here is a translated tourism page. I go, I look, I ask, and then I write it in my own words. The photographs are mine.
I say when I don’t know
Every guide ends with a short “what I did not check” note. If two sources disagree, I print both and tell you which one to verify. If I haven’t been somewhere, I don’t write as though I have.
Things change, so I go back
Prices and hours move. When I find a change I edit the text, update the review date, and leave a one-line note at the top if it matters. If you spot something wrong, the contact page reaches me and I’ll fix it.
About AI
I use software, including AI tools, to organise research and check translations. No page goes up without me verifying the facts against the source, and the experience, judgement and photographs are mine. If a piece leaned heavily on AI drafting, it says so at the top.
Advertising
There are no adverts on the site today. I intend to fund it with advertising, most likely Google AdSense, and when that starts advertisers still won’t see articles before they go up or have any say in what I cover. Sponsored or gifted content, if I ever publish it, will say so at the top. The privacy policy explains what advertising would mean for cookies, and the terms of use set out the limits of what I’m responsible for.