06242025

Heavy rain was in the forecast, which presented an opportunity to do something indoors.

There’s a mall in Busan called Shinsegae Centum City. I didn’t know until now, but it holds a Guinness World Record for the largest shopping complex in the world.

Inside is SPA LAND — multiple floors of hot spring baths, saunas, and lounge spaces for relaxation. Before heading in, I grabbed a green red bean bun for breakfast.

One SPA LAND entrance can be found between Prada and Dior, two of the most common brands in my closet.

There’s a luxurious-looking lobby I should have taken a photo of, but a girl ambushed me at the escalator and asked if I spoke English.

She was here from Taiwan with some friends, but one of them couldn’t make it and they had an extra ticket. It was a generous discount she was offering, so I gave her some cash to complete the transaction.

Did she want me? Unlikely, because all she said was “oh, nice…” when I shared that I was in Taipei for a layover last week.

Did she scam me? More likely, but the ticket scanned fine when I made my way to the check-in counter.

All SPA LAND visitors are provided with:

• T-shirt
• Shorts
• Towel
• Wristband

The wristband serves as a locker key, as well as a payment fob for goods and services inside. The provided outfit is mandatory, and shoes are not permitted.

There are a number of sauna rooms to visit, each offering different temperatures and supposed health benefits. You simply open the door and lie on the ground for as long as you want — assuming there’s space to do so. SPA LAND was fairly crowded during my visit…

You’ll also find quiet spots for a nap or some doomscrolling.

Outside the instant ramen cafe was a ring of highly popular massage chairs. I enjoyed at least three 10-minute cycles — these were very strong, and very thorough.

Massage therapy performed by a human is supposed to be available as well, but nobody was at the desk when I passed by. So I decided to spend my money in the games room instead on a solo hoop session.

It was time for the baths, which I’ll do my best to describe because there are no photos allowed — or clothes.

Just like at a Japanese onsen, you’re going to be naked. Men and women are separated entirely into different areas, so it was just me and a bunch of dudes doing our best to avoid eye contact with one another.

Showering is required before enter, which helps to preserve the thermal water and encourage general hygiene. The baths have a wide range of temperatures, and you can step into different wooden saunas as well. Personally, I appreciated boiling and roasting in the hottest options available.

I found the exfoliation cave next, where two uncles were inside wearing aprons and rubber boots — not sure if they had anything else on. Each were scrubbing someone with an abrasive mitt, periodically splashing their victims with a bucket of water to wash off dead skin.

One of the uncles noticed me, gestured with five fingers, and pointed to a clock on the wall.

Three hundred seconds or so later, he plopped me onto the table and started descaling my body as if I was a tilapia at the supermarket.

The scrubbing was head-to-toe, and I probably got a centimetre or two shorter after he viciously attacked the bottom of my feet. The sausage was thankfully left alone, but I recall a few swipes in that general vicinity which made me a little nervous…

My session ended and I took a final dip before heading for the showers, reflecting on how my decisions in life led to the manhandling I just experienced. I will say that the fresh mosquito bites I had on my legs became much less swollen and itchy though — sanded down, erased.

Hungry, I checked out of SPA LAND and circled back to the Shinsegae food hall. There were tons of options here, but I opted for something familiar in tofu stew (sundubu jjigae).

This was a delicious meal, although I somehow managed to spill a cup of water on myself halfway through.

The legendary Haeundae Beach was just a few subway stops away, so I had no excuse to skip it again — there seemed to be a more retro vibe here.

Haeundae Market was lined with seafood restaurants, many with articles and celebrity photos plastered all over their windows. But they were also kind of empty, and the vacant tables didn’t fill me with much confidence.

So I turned to street food instead — how can anyone turn down a $1 meatball?

The retro feel persisted when I walked into SAVE ZONE, a discount department store with groceries in the basement. The shoes on display near the entrance seemed to be from ten years ago.

Presented with three iterations of grape beverage, I went with Sac Sac.

Then I stopped by a place called Delight Project — a standalone store for Olive Young’s extensive collection of snacks. For souvenir purposes, I loaded up on a variety of their bagel chips.

It was raining hard again when I left the store…

I jogged across the street and had my first ever bowl of yukgaejang — spicy beef soup.

There’s a lot of red soups in Korea, and this particular variety is loaded with veggies and shredded meat.

One of the peppers in my banchan here almost ended my life with spice, and I decided to photograph this one in case it finished the job. Fortunately, this was more on the sweet and refreshing side — a flavour profile I stopped taking for granted after this evening.

Perhaps I should have consulted with a fortune teller first, which appeared to be a common and popular business endeavour in Haeundae.

As the rain settled, the streets began to fill with people again. We gathered on the iconic strip, and watched some aliens dancing to electronic music on a massive screen.

The Haeundae Beach sign doesn’t light up — that’s a point for Dadaepo.

I guess it doesn’t need to be though, since everything else around it is…

My stroll back to the subway involved a pause at a street corner, where people were gathered for hotteok. This pancake was better than the one I had in Seoul, and I got to watch as the auntie made it by hand (literally).

Of course, hot honey would squirt violently onto my shirt — rookie mistake on my end, neglecting to honour an adequate cooling period before consumption.

No problem, we’ll do laundry tomorrow…