[LOCAL TOUR] What to Expect From Old Haeridan-Gil Mansions in Busan
We’ve run into aging mansions in the areas of Haeridan-gil and Haeundae while touring Busan. There we also found some extraordinary shops.
The surrounding areas of Haeundae, Gwangalli, Gijang, and Yeongdo are popular tourist destinations in Busan thanks to the presence of beaches. People traveling from distant regions rent cars to navigate between trendy restaurants and cute cafés. They often post new feeds on their Instagram accounts with freshly-captured beach photographs. Particularly, Haeridan-gil is highly coveted by young travelers despite its distance to the beach.
More Mansions in Busan Than Expected
With the now-closed Haeundae train station in the center, the ocean side and the opposite Bongdaesan side present quite different atmospheres. The seaside Haeundae strip has skyscrapers, apartment complexes, and high-end commercial buildings, whereas behind the station you can find a humble residential district known as the Haeridan-gil neighborhood. Having gotten the name several years ago, the area has interesting mom-and-pop stores and diners. Once there, you will notice that many shops are located on the ground floor of old mansions or their annexed commercial buildings. Mansion, meaning a big house in English, was used ironically as a title for a small apartment complex in Korea in the past. They are hardly spotted these days but Busan still has a number of multi-unit residential buildings with ‘mansion’ attached to the names. In the Haeridan-gil neighborhood, small stores provide various shopping opportunities along those mansions.
❶ London Market & Warrrket at Uil Mansion
The address of Haeridan-gil is U 1-dong, Haeundae-gu. Naturally, the area has quite a few addresses containing ‘uil’(meaning U 1) in their names, including Uil Market and Uil Mansion. There are small, eclectic shops, diners and cafés at Uil Mansion. The most popular ones are London Market and Warrrket.
London Market is run by a maximalist owner who lived in London for over 10 years, collecting all kinds of accessories, chinaware, and decorative items. She has brought the collection to Busan and opened a small shop featuring the precious, hard-to-find goods including vintage vases and china made by Royal Copenhagen likes, travel books published by Moleskine, and vintage clothing. Travel issues regarding Covid-19 have resulted in a temporary drop in the number of available items, but you can still find coveted items at London Market. The owner fell in love with Haeridan-gil unexpectedly during a short visit to Korea and decided to start a business. Despite the setbacks caused by the pandemic, the owner’s strong will to continue engaging with customers in person is largely keeping the business alive. Her unique, eclectic personality fills the small space with one-of-a-kind items.
Warrrket is one of the two wine shops operating on the Haeridan-gil street. The other shop is Your Naked Cheese from Seoul.
Warrrket, focusing more on the wine itself over related food products, has a business edge thanks to its wine list handpicked by the owner. Having started the wine business out of pure passion while still being under a payroll elsewhere, the owner filled an entire wall of the shop with an assortment of wine. Casual wine packages blend naturally with blue and white interior colors, adding to the shop’s visual appeal. Due to the large percentage of customers who are visitors to Haeundae, the shop deals mostly with more affordable, trendy labels with characteristics, rather than expensive, vintage bottles. Sweet sparkling wine and white wine are in high demand.
Uil Mansion 11 U-dong 1-ro 38beon-gil, Haeundae-gu, Busan
London Market www.instagram.com/ldnmarket_
Warrrket www.instagram.com/warrrket
Warrrket, focusing more on the wine itself over related food products, has a business edge thanks to its wine list handpicked by the owner. Having started the wine business out of pure passion while still being under a payroll elsewhere, the owner filled an entire wall of the shop with an assortment of wine. Casual wine packages blend naturally with blue and white interior colors, adding to the shop’s visual appeal. Due to the large percentage of customers who are visitors to Haeundae, the shop deals mostly with more affordable, trendy labels with characteristics, rather than expensive, vintage bottles. Sweet sparkling wine and white wine are in high demand.
Uil Mansion 11 U-dong 1-ro 38beon-gil, Haeundae-gu, Busan
London Market www.instagram.com/ldnmarket_
Warrrket www.instagram.com/warrrket
❷ Sentiment Studio and Camellia Lady at Arim Beach Mansion
Arim Beach Mansion is an apartment building located across the street from a large letter structure marking the entrance to Haeridan-gil. Behind the mansion is an open view of Bongdaesan Mountain’s low summit. A single-story commercial building shares the address of ‘37 U-dong 1-ro’ with Aram Beach Mansion. Stationery and poster shop Sentiment Studio and cake shop Camellia Lady are tenants there.
Sentiment Studio has daily journals and planners designed by the owner who studied art, travel photographs, rare, imported stationery, and original vintage posters. Journals and planners have both practical and aesthetic appeals, offering various options for different tastes. Travel photographs taken by the owner with a FujiX100 digital camera convey a unique perspective and sentimentality, with high quality suitable for Instagram postings. While the owner turns images from travel destinations into posters and various stationery items, Sentiment Studio’s stock grows richer and more diverse.
If you run a search for Camellia Lady on Instagram, the top feed is an image of a cake with a fully bloomed flower shape. It's proof that cakes made by Camellia Lady are widely coveted. The cake shop operates 100 percent through reservations. The most-popular signature cake is pre-made on a small scale due to a high demand, but gets sold out in a few hours. If you have a specific flower or color scheme in mind, the shop will take that information into consideration for customization as much as possible. Colorful cake decorations in the market are usually butter-based, but Camellia Lady uses fresh cream for its products.
Arim Beach Mansion 37 U-dong 1-ro, Haeundae-gu, Busan
Sentiment Studio www.instagram.com/sentiment_shop
Camellia Lady www.instagram.com/_camellia_lady_
Arim Beach Mansion 37 U-dong 1-ro, Haeundae-gu, Busan
Sentiment Studio www.instagram.com/sentiment_shop
Camellia Lady www.instagram.com/_camellia_lady_
❸ Burger Shop and Red Tteokbokki in Haeridan-gil
There are diverse eating options on Haeridan-gil, ranging from gourmet burger places and dessert shops to old tteokbokki and dwaeji gukbap places. Among them, Burger Shop, famous for specialty burgers, and Red Tteokbokki, known as one and only in Busan, always have long lines of customers in front of their businesses.
Haeundae’s Burger Shop is one of the most successful gourmet burger shops in Busan. The business was established even before the street was known as Haeridan-gil. Its competitive advantage is in the originality of burger patties that have the authentic American flavor. The makeup of juicy patties, caramelized onions and texture of buns are simple yet true to the classic American style. The 120g patties are all made from 100-percent first-grade Korean beef. There is also a temporary pop-up store operating in Seoul since the beginning of this year.
Haeundae’s Burger Shop is one of the most successful gourmet burger shops in Busan. The business was established even before the street was known as Haeridan-gil. Its competitive advantage is in the originality of burger patties that have the authentic American flavor. The makeup of juicy patties, caramelized onions and texture of buns are simple yet true to the classic American style. The 120g patties are all made from 100-percent first-grade Korean beef. There is also a temporary pop-up store operating in Seoul since the beginning of this year.
Red Tteokbokki is a bunsik place that has long been a local pride in Haeundae. The tteokbokki business has been open for over 40 years. It is so popular that it often closes early with the “Ran out of materials” memo posted on the entrance door. Its tteokbokki features a red sauce minus the spicy flavor and chewy garaetteok(bar rice cake) that are well-cooked, changing any kind of typical thoughts you may have about tteokbokki. Instagram is full of customer reviews praising it as their best tteokbokki experience thus far. You’ll get reminded of the old truth that tteok is crucial to the tteokbokki dish and may scream ‘Eureka’ after tasting Red Tteokbokki in Busan.
Burger Shop www.instagram.com/burgershopbusan
Red Tteokbokki 4 U-dong 1-ro 20beonga-gil, Haeundae-gu, Busan
Burger Shop www.instagram.com/burgershopbusan
Red Tteokbokki 4 U-dong 1-ro 20beonga-gil, Haeundae-gu, Busan
❹ 'Man-Shon' Rather Than Mansion, Daelim Mansion
On the way to the beach from the Haeundae Station, you will find a lone mansion building on the opposite side of the Haeundae District Office. It’s called Daelim Mansion. The building’s front sign, interestingly, says ‘man-shon’ in Korean. Showing traces of age, the still not-too-shabby structure houses some interesting shops and galleries. To name a few, there are Galerie ERD Busan, lifestyle and beauty brand Nonfiction’s showroom, and dessert shop Tart Hooligan.
Mansions are in essence residential buildings, so they have people living in them. That’s why there is a written request to visitors to act with decorum, at the entrance to Nonfiction. The lifestyle and beauty brand has been rapidly growing after its launch in Seoul. Its main merchandise includes fragrances, scented items, body products, and soaps.
The Busan showroom opened after the Hannam and Seongsu showrooms successfully settled. It’s easy to guess the direction the brand has chosen to go, if you consider the fact that it chose Daelim Mansion over newly-built highrises in Haeundae or Centum City. The indoor space and merchandise at the showroom create harmony thanks to their clean and simple designs. Haeundae visitors often include Daelim Mansion in their itinerary to go to Nonfiction. The second and third floors are used as the showroom, with the latter being operated as an untact room.
The Busan showroom opened after the Hannam and Seongsu showrooms successfully settled. It’s easy to guess the direction the brand has chosen to go, if you consider the fact that it chose Daelim Mansion over newly-built highrises in Haeundae or Centum City. The indoor space and merchandise at the showroom create harmony thanks to their clean and simple designs. Haeundae visitors often include Daelim Mansion in their itinerary to go to Nonfiction. The second and third floors are used as the showroom, with the latter being operated as an untact room.
Galerie ERD started as an art gallery in Itaewon dedicated to the works of contemporary artists and designers. It is also the very first ‘House of Finn Juhl’ in Asia where you can see the Danish artist’s furniture on display. He is renowned and credited for having led the golden age of furniture design in Denmark. Since its opening in 2020, Galerie ERD Busan has been introducing more easy-to-understand, straightforward artworks to attract visitors, maximizing the effect of its location being in the center of Haeundae. The solo exhibition of artist Gungho who creates animated images using cloud shapes was held through July. In August, artist Kang Sukhyung’s solo exhibition is taking place featuring art drawn with simple, repetitive lines and vivid colors.
Busan has a variety of gourmet eating options, enough to rival Seoul. Haeundae in particular presents both traditional old diners and trendy restaurants. There are various dessert shops as well. Even among them, Tart Hooligan has a reputation for its fresh, seasonal tarts. It uses the image of a cute baby for the brand logo. In addition to nuts and cheese, there are other diverse seasonal toppings, giving customers the experience of customizing their fruit desserts. The usual long waiting line in front of the shop, despite the competitive business environment, shows how popular Tart Hooligan is.
Daelim Mansion 302 Haeundaehaebyeon-ro, Haeundae-gu, Busan
Galerie ERD galerieerd.com
Nonfiction Busan www.instagram.com/official.nonfiction
Tart Hooligan www.instagram.com/tart_hooligan
Daelim Mansion 302 Haeundaehaebyeon-ro, Haeundae-gu, Busan
Galerie ERD galerieerd.com
Nonfiction Busan www.instagram.com/official.nonfiction
Tart Hooligan www.instagram.com/tart_hooligan
Where to Stay in Busan: LOTTE HOTEL BUSAN and SIGNIEL BUSAN
LOTTE HOTEL BUSAN, offering a spectacular view of the city from its Seomyeon location, offers a chance to rest and relax in rooms with contemporary sensibilities and design. You can choose from some 650 rooms, depending on the purpose of your trip, and build special memories of Busan at one of many fine-dining restaurants.
SIGNIEL BUSAN is the second SIGNIEL location, after the one in Seoul, and is situated in the Haeundae landmark, LCT Tower. With 260 rooms, SIGNIEL BUSAN brings you a breathtaking view of the ocean over Haeundae Beach, with Gwangan Bridge also in sight. SIGNIEL BUSAN also serves world-class gourmet meals, with the three-Michelin starred chef Bruno Menard acting as a consultant.
Website LOTTE HOTEL BUSAN / SIGNIEL BUSAN
SIGNIEL BUSAN is the second SIGNIEL location, after the one in Seoul, and is situated in the Haeundae landmark, LCT Tower. With 260 rooms, SIGNIEL BUSAN brings you a breathtaking view of the ocean over Haeundae Beach, with Gwangan Bridge also in sight. SIGNIEL BUSAN also serves world-class gourmet meals, with the three-Michelin starred chef Bruno Menard acting as a consultant.
Website LOTTE HOTEL BUSAN / SIGNIEL BUSAN
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