Spot guide · Busan 釜山 · 부산
Photo: bryan... / CC BY-SAThe stepped rows of pastel houses in every photograph of Busan are a refugee settlement. People fleeing the Korean War in the 1950s built on the hillside because it was the only land nobody had claimed, and a religious community moved up there with them. It stayed poor and it stayed standing.
From 2009 an arts regeneration project brought murals, sculpture and colour, and it became the most photographed place in the city. Around eight to nine thousand people still live in it, many elderly, with alleys two feet wide between their front doors.
Taxi both ways, one loop, no detours. Nothing else fits.
Gamcheon, then down to Jagalchi and BIFF Square for lunch.
Go at opening. By eleven the lanes are full.
Yes, if you go early and walk slowly. It is a Korean War refugee settlement from the 1950s, regenerated through an arts project from 2009 into the most photographed place in Busan. It is also home to eight or nine thousand people, so quiet is genuinely requested rather than decorative.
It is stairs and slopes throughout, on uneven surfaces. Take a taxi up and walk down toward the main road — the descent is the manageable direction — and wear proper shoes. Budget ninety minutes for a single loop.
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