🎧 Yul's Korea Audio Guide
Haeundae Beach
Narrated in English with Korean phrases by YUL of KVIBE IDOLS.
🎵 Background music: Still in That Spring (그 봄에 머물러) — KVIBE IDOLS · Listen to the full song →
Full transcript
Annyeong, yeoreobun! Yul here, toes in the sand at Haeundae Beach, the most famous beach in Korea! About one and a half kilometers of sand, skyscrapers behind me, and the blue sea in front.
But first, a name story. More than a thousand years ago lived a Silla genius named Choe Chi-won. At just twelve years old, he was sent to Tang China to study, and he passed the top state exam there. After he came home, he is said to have fallen in love with this view. One of his literary names was Haeun, meaning sea and clouds. And so this place became Haeundae! On Dongbaek Island, at the end of the beach, you can still see characters carved into a rock, said to be his calligraphy.
Haeundae stayed fairly quiet until the late 1970s and 80s. Then hotels and towers shot up. Today, on a hot summer day, the sand can almost disappear under umbrellas.
Plot twist: in 2009, a blockbuster movie called Haeundae showed a giant tsunami smashing into this very beach. Don't worry, it's fiction! And every January since 1988, brave swimmers jump into the freezing water for the Polar Bear Festival. Brrr!
Yul's tip! Walk the trail around Dongbaek Island. You'll pass a mermaid statue from an old legend, and Nurimaru APEC House, built for the 2005 APEC summit, with a great view of Gwangan Bridge. In the evening, stroll up Dalmaji Road for the sea view.
Next, a temple sitting right on the rocks by the sea. Kaja!
