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Busan is South Korea’s great coastal city and its busiest port, set at the southeastern tip of the peninsula where every street seems to lean toward the water. Fishing boats crowd the harbour, mountains press the neighbourhoods into the coast, and the smell of salt and grilled fish follows you even into the subway. Korea’s second city has none of Seoul’s polished hurry. It moves at its own pace, loud, warm and unapologetically rough around the edges, and that is exactly why travellers fall for it.

A City Shaped by History
Busan has been a port for centuries, a gateway for trade with Japan and the wider Pacific. Its defining chapter came during the Korean War, when it became one of the few places never captured and served as the temporary capital of the South. Hundreds of thousands of refugees poured in and built homes wherever they could, often on steep hillsides with whatever materials they found. Much of today’s Busan grew out of those years. The UN Memorial Cemetery in Nam District, the only one of its kind in the world, keeps that memory quiet and dignified among neat lawns and flags from many nations.

Buddhism runs just as deep. Beomeosa Temple, founded in the 7th century on the slopes of Geumjeongsan Mountain, still welcomes monks and visitors along its forest paths, and the morning drums there are worth the early start.

Places You Should Not Miss
Built by refugees on a sheer hillside, Gamcheon Culture Village is a sprawling cascade of pastel houses, with murals, tiny galleries and rooftop views over the port. Wear good shoes, because the stairs never seem to end.

Haedong Yonggungsa is one of the rare Korean temples built right on the seashore. Waves break against the rocks below the pagoda, and at sunrise the whole place glows gold.

Haeundae Beach is the famous one, a long curve of sand backed by towers, while Gwangalli feels younger and livelier, with cafés facing the Gwangan Bridge as it lights up at night. On Yeongdo Island, the cliffs of Taejongdae drop straight into the sea, and the walking trails there give you Busan at its wildest.

Down at the water, Jagalchi Fish Market is where Busan’s pulse beats fastest. Rows of tanks hold octopus, eels, crabs and creatures you may not recognise. The women who run the stalls, known locally as Jagalchi ajimae, have been the face of this market for generations. Pick your fish downstairs and they will cook it for you upstairs.

Food With a Busan Accent
Busan eats differently from the rest of Korea. Dwaeji gukbap, a milky pork and rice soup, is the city’s comfort food, eaten at any hour with chives and a spoon of salted shrimp. Milmyeon, cold wheat noodles in an icy broth, was born during the war when refugees adapted northern buckwheat noodles to the flour they could get. Fish cakes called eomuk are a local pride, sold hot on skewers with cups of broth on every corner.

In Nampo Dong, look for ssiat hotteok, sweet pancakes fried and split open to be stuffed with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. And if you visit Dongnae, the old town, order Dongnae pajeon, a thick green onion pancake once served to royalty.

Festivals and Traditions
Every October the Busan International Film Festival fills the city with directors, actors and film lovers, and it remains the most important film event in Asia. In autumn the Busan Fireworks Festival turns Gwangalli into a sea of faces watching the bridge explode with colour. Before Buddha’s Birthday in spring, lantern lines cover the temples, and Samgwangsa becomes a ceiling of light.

Like all Koreans, Busan families gather for Seollal, the Lunar New Year, and Chuseok, the autumn harvest festival. Markets get busy weeks in advance, and people travel home to bow to their elders, share rice cakes and visit ancestral graves.

The People of Busan
Locals speak the Gyeongsang dialect, which sounds sharp and fast to outsiders. Koreans from other cities sometimes call Busan people blunt, but spend an evening with them and you will find the opposite. They are direct because they have nothing to hide, and generous once you share a table. Watch a Lotte Giants baseball game at Sajik Stadium and you will see the city at full volume: thousands of fans singing the old song “Busan Galmaegi” and wearing orange plastic bags on their heads. Nobody explains it to you. You just join in.

Magelline Perspectives
Busan is the Korea that smells of the sea and speaks its mind. Come for the beaches and temples, stay for a bowl of gukbap at midnight and a conversation with someone who has lived by this harbour all their life. Gimhae International Airport sits just outside the city, and the light rail from the terminal links straight into the Busan Metro at Sasang and Daejeo, so you can be in Seomyeon or on the sand at Haeundae within the hour.

Portuguese sailors are supposed to have named Taiwan Ilha Formosa in the sixteenth century. That's the story, anyway. Taipei, the capital, sits in a bowl of volcanic hills in the island's north. It rains a lot. People carry umbrellas the way others carry keys, and the city keeps going. The best way to see it is to give it one full day and start early.

5:30, Elephant Mountain
Take the metro to Xiangshan station and walk to the trailhead. The stairs are steep. Twenty minutes, less if you're fit, and expect to be overtaken by retired men in tracksuits who do this every morning. From the rocks at the top you look straight across at Taipei 101. On a cloudy morning, the tower disappears somewhere around the fortieth floor, which is its own kind of view. Breakfast afterwards: warm soy milk and youtiao, long fried dough sticks.

8:00, Longshan Temple
Longshan Temple has its own metro stop, which tells you how much it matters here. Settlers from Fujian built it in 1738. It has burned, cracked in earthquakes and taken a direct hit from Allied bombs in 1945. The statue of Guanyin in the main hall survived that raid, and people still talk about it. Watch the red wooden blocks shaped like half moons. Someone asks a question, drops the pair on the floor and reads the answer from how they land. One flat side up and one round side up means yes.

11:00, Dihua Street
This is old Taipei. In the 1800s, the Dadaocheng district shipped tea and camphor down the river, and merchants built tall shophouses with carved fronts that still stand. The ground floors sell dried shiitake, scallops, herbs, fabric and a surprising amount of dried fruit.

Halfway along is Xiahai City God Temple. It's small. People come for Yue Lao, the god of marriage, who is said to tie a red thread between future couples. Many come back later with wedding candy for him.

14:00, Beitou
Change at Beitou station for the short branch line to Xinbeitou. You'll smell the sulfur before you see anything. Thermal Valley, at the top of the park, is a steaming green pond too hot to touch. On the way down you pass the public library, a wooden building with a planted roof.

The open-air public bath near the stream is mixed, so bring a swimsuit. Hotel baths are usually separate for men and women, and there you go in with nothing on. An hour is plenty. You'll come out heavy and slow, which is the idea.

17:00, Maokong
Getting here from Beitou takes over an hour, right across the city to Taipei Zoo station. Then the gondola. If you don't mind a longer queue, wait for a cabin with a glass floor.

Maokong grows tea, mostly Tieguanyin and Baozhong. Teahouses along the road brew it in small clay pots, and many also cook with the leaves. Find a terrace, order a pot and stay until dark, when the basin below fills with lights.

19:30, Für Elise in the Lanes
Taipei has almost no public bins. Garbage leaves by truck, and every truck plays music so people know it's coming. Usually Für Elise. Sometimes A Maiden's Prayer. Whole lanes empty out when they hear it, people carrying bags and sorted recycling, a few in pyjamas. Two minutes of chatting at the curb, then the truck moves on.

21:00, Raohe Night Market
The entrance is at Ciyou Temple, right by Songshan station. The first queue you'll see is for pepper buns. They're baked stuck to the inside wall of a clay oven and come out stuffed with pork, lots of black pepper and scallion. Everyone burns their mouth on the first one. Then keep walking: herbal pork rib soup, grilled squid, stinky tofu if you're brave, shaved ice to finish. Raohe is a single lane about 600 meters long.

23:30, Taipei 101
At this hour, the observatory is closed, so you look at 101 from the street. It's 508 meters tall, finished in 2004, and it held the title of world's tallest building for six years. The design follows bamboo: eight sections of eight floors each, because eight is a lucky number in Chinese. Near the top, a 660-ton steel ball hangs on cables to steady the tower in typhoons and earthquakes. The lights change colour by weekday. It's red on Monday, then cycles through the rainbow to purple on Sunday.

Magelline Perspectives
We think Taipei works best without a tight plan. Everything here is close to a metro station, the city feels safe late at night, and the convenience stores never close. Pack an umbrella. Leave room for a second dinner.

Crossing from Miyajimaguchi over calm water, you watch a huge vermilion gate rise directly out of the sea. Japanese artists have ranked this view among the country's top three scenic spots for generations, though locals officially call the island Itsukushima. Miyajima translates to shrine island, a nickname rooted in ancient reverence. Early worshippers considered every foot of soil sacred. They built Itsukushima Shrine on wooden stilts over the tidal flat so pilgrims could dock and enter without stepping on holy ground.

Itsukushima Shrine & the Great Torii
Warlord Taira no Kiyomori gave the shrine its iconic layout in 1168. High tide lifts the entire complex off the mud, turning its long red hallways into a floating wooden village. Low tide pulls the water back to expose tidal pools, tiny crabs, and wet sand. You can walk right out to the Great Torii gate during these dry hours.

The current gate was built in 1875 from heavy camphor wood. It reaches nearly 17 meters tall and rests on the seabed under its own massive weight without underground pillars. UNESCO listed the complex as a World Heritage site in 1996. Checking daily tide charts before you arrive lets you see both dramatic states in a single visit.

Mount Misen
Mount Misen climbs 535 meters behind the buildings. Dense primaeval forest covers the slopes, winding past mossy boulders and mountain streams. Hikers can tackle the two-hour climb or take the ropeway most of the way up. Near the peak, the fire inside Reikado Hall has burned continuously since the monk Kobo Daishi lit it in 806. In 1964 a light from this fire was carried to Hiroshima to kindle the Peace Flame. The summit offers open views across the Seto Inland Sea, where passenger ferries cut white wakes through dark blue water.

Temples & Deer
Daishoin Temple sits near the base of the mountain. Hundreds of small stone statues dressed in hand-knit caps line the grounds, and metal prayer wheels line the stair railings for visitors to spin. Nearby stands Senjokaku, a massive unpainted wooden hall ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587. Construction stopped when he died, leaving an airy, open-sided structure next to a vibrant five-story pagoda built in 1407.

Wild sika deer roam the town streets freely. They are tame enough to walk right up to tourists, though they will gladly chew up paper maps or train tickets left in easy reach.

Tastes of the Island
The best food waits along Omotesando Street. Hiroshima Bay produces world-class oysters, which vendors grill fresh over hot coals right on the sidewalk. You will also find momiji manju, leaf-shaped cakes stuffed with sweet red bean paste, alongside anago meshi, a dish of grilled conger eel served over seasoned rice. Red maples cover Momijidani Park in brilliant colour every autumn.

Notes
Ferries run continuously from Miyajimaguchi, taking about ten minutes. The JR ferry is covered by the Japan Rail Pass and also accepts IC cards like ICOCA, while direct boats connect the island to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Local authorities collect a small 100 yen visitor fee with your ferry ticket. Staying overnight in a local ryokan reveals the island's quiet side. Once the final day boat departs, the daytime crowds vanish, lanterns light up the dark shoreline, and the lit gate glows against the night water.

Magelline’s Perspective
Most visitors give Miyajima a few hours and leave with a photo of the gate. The island deserves more. Arrive at high tide, wait for the sea to pull back, climb Misen while the light is soft, and stay for the evening when the deer settle, and the lanterns come on. Few places in Japan let you feel this close to the old idea of a sacred island, and fewer still let you sleep there.