We took a day trip to the island of Youngdo in Busan, South Korea!

In the summer of 2024, I had the wonderful opportunity to go abroad with the Critical Language Scholarship. That means I was fully funded to study abroad in Busan, South Korea, for eight weeks, which was such a magical experience and a bit of a homecoming.

Our program was an eclectic mix of things throughout these eight weeks. We went on many different cultural excursions, and these were to offer more insight into Korean culture and what it had to offer historically for us as Americans. One of our field trips was to Youngdo.

So from Busan National University, we boarded a bus and drove an hour south to the island of Youngdo. This was a brief trip throughout the course of the day, as it was only about ten hours around the island, but we learned a lot throughout our time in the island!

I kept saying I wanted to go back, but I never did. Oh well, it’s for the next time I go to Busan!

Here’s what we did throughout the day.

Our first stop was the Huinnyeoul Culture Village.

This is one of the bigger tourist destinations of Busan, but it’s a bit more out of the way compared to its cousin Gamcheon Culture Village. Like Gamcheon though, Huinnyeoul is an area where people actually live, so there are signs throughout the village telling you to be quiet and to not raise your voice.

We first went down into the coastal tunnel, which is closed when the weather is bad. From the tunnel’s end, there’s a little rocky beach, and beneath all of the steps, there’s a viewing platform where on clear days you can see the coast and islands of Japan. Busan is indeed right next to Japan.

From there, we walked throughout the village. There are a ton of cute little photo spots scattered throughout the village, but I wasn’t really interested in those. The entire vibe of the village is cute though, and there are some cafes sprinkled throughout the walkways.

We also stopped briefly in a store that only sold merchandise featuring cats. I bought some postcards of Korean style warrior cats for my niece and nephews, as well as something for my sister.

Our hour was up after that, and we ended up having to leave. That’s why I considered coming back, as I felt like my time in the village was complete, but I didn’t find the urge to come back strong enough. It’s not really a must for me to revisit, even if I return to Busan.

We made a brief stop at KIOST to learn about environmental protection in South Korea.

One of the themes of our program is that we wanted to go around and learn more about environmental policy in South Korea, especially as it pertains to climate change. One of our cultural lectures later on in the program was a climate physicist who explained what the future might look like very soon.

So we went to KIOST, which was established in the 1970s and has locations all around the world to continue studying climate and how to alleviate the conditions of climate change. There, we saw some of the experiments they were running, but we’re very much not allowed to go into further detail about what we witnessed.

After that, we headed into the main building, where one of the English-speaking employees came to talk to us about the history of the organization and what the past, present, and future of KIOST looks like.

As someone who had no idea this organization existed in Korea, I thought it was pretty fascinating to have a small insight into what climate change looked like in the penninsular country, as I’m used to studying it in a South Asian context.

The National Maritime Museum is free and a great experience overall!

Our final stop in the day was the National Maritime Museum, which is actually located right next to KIOST. We walked over from the main KIOST building and then entered the museum, which is free because it’s a national museum. All nationally designated museums in South Korea are free to enter!

We had about two hours in the museum, and had an assignment to complete, so we wandered the three floors. It’s not that big of a museum, but it contains a lot of artifacts from Korea’s human history with the sea. From haenyeo to record logs from Joseon about ocean and warfare, there’s a lot to learn here.

Some of my favorite parts of the museum were the ones that had replicas of the turtle Korean war ships. While it sucked to have to do homework and not understand, taking my time to see everything in the museum, I had a great time here.

And then, after that, we took the bus back for an hour to Pusan National University! I had a great time in Youngdo, and maybe if I’m ever in Busan extensively there’ll be time to come back.

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