Train to Busan & Day 1 of Eating

After a tiring 11 hour flight with 2 crying kids in J, now we got to hop on the train to Busan. Luckily, security was breeze and we were thru the line in less than 5 mins, grabbed a pair of Non-Stop AREX from ICN to Seoul Station. At Seoul Station, we picked up a pair of First Class KTX tix from Seoul Station to Busan Station under the advice from some friends who grew up in Korea......also they told me I would be disappointed as their won't be any zombies on board.....

I only ended up snapping a quick and crappy pic with my Iphone since we were both dead tired......and yes.....she is eating.....i was also instructed to block out her face because I managed to capture her with a weird face on

The KTX train reached speeds upwards of 280 km/hr and it was pretty stable as well. I managed to sleep for almost 2 hours and the ride was around 2 hours and 30mins. Its a great way to get from ICN to Busan if you didn't want to fly.

We booked a 3 night stay at Ibis Ambassador Busan City Centre, your typical 3 star hotel in Asia. We weren't staying for too long and the price included breakfast which was a "Must Have" for my wife. The only thing I didn't realize was the hotel was quite a bit away from the Busan KTX station. The metro station in Busan is very convenient, but the stairwell which led from the metro station beside the hotel was quite steep, there was no escalator and the elevator goes up to the other side of the street which is like a 8 lane high traffic street, jaywalking was not an option and carrying our luggages up that stairwell was going to be near impossible since my wife couldn't really help me.
Our only option was to take a taxi from the KTX station to the hotel, the only issue is, we were warned about this ahead of time, taxi drivers in Busan dont speak a lick of english and they can get very impatient. Which is exactly what happened, I tried to use google maps which gave him the address in English and Hangul and I'm not not too sure why he still didn't know where it was. I can feel some frustration so I opened up google translate and typed in English to translate to Hangul "please take us to this address (insert hotel address)" and pressed the speak button for the phone to say it in Korean, after that, he typed some Hangul into his own smartphone GPS app and started driving away. In about 15 minutes, we arrived at our hotel. Check-in at the Ibis was on the 17th Floor, the only hotel restaurant is also on the same floor, and this is where we will be having our daily breakfast. We got up to our room and immediately unpacked the necessities, showered, forgot about dinner and passed the F* out. Overall, the hotel is what you would expect from a 3 star hotel in Asia, teeny-tiny room size, small bathroom which only had a standup shower in the shape of a triangle, my wife had a hard time turning in the shower without hitting the wall or the glass. Staff spoke minimum english. We tried asking them for restaurant recommendations and things to do but we could clearly tell they struggled with English. When we checked-out and asked the hotel staff to call a cab for us, I had to use google translate....yes this again....to translate "Busan KTX station" into Hangul for him to tell our taxi driver. Would I recommend this hotel? Not unless you are looking for value.

I was so exhausted so only remembered to snap a pic of the room with all our crap and forgot about a pic of the bathroom


Our breakfast for the next few mornings. Limited selection but at least there was a mixture of hot and cold food. Food quality was as good as what you expect from a 3 star hotel. It was edible but nothing rave about.


Next Up: Day 1 of Eating thru Busan.....Is it Day 1....or should it be Day 2.....still jet-legged....who cares?