Busan International Fireworks Festival

End of Sep 2010, I read a travel article about Korea. What caught my attention was there was going to be a Busan International Fireworks Festival at the city of Busan in Korea on 22 & 23 Oct 2010.

I like fireworks pretty much and I like to take photos of fireworks. I had a strong feeling that this is a golden opportunity that I could not miss. I checked out the airfare, I booked the air tickets and hotels. My wife and I flew to Busan on 21 Oct to take photos at the international fireworks festival.

Arrival at Busan

Buildings on Mountainous Terrain at Busan

It was a night flight, I touched down at Busan in the morning. I realized then Busan’s terrain has lots of high mountain. There are lots of tunnels that we passed through and there are lots of apartments and houses builts on the slope of the mountain, making it a very interesting landscape.

Street View at Busan

I checked in at the hotel near Gwangalli Beach, which is the venue for the Busan International Fireworks Festival. After which, I walked around to familiarize myself with the surroundings. The streets were not very crowded near my hotels, not many cars and therefore it is not noisy. It is pretty quiet and peaceful.

Apartments in Busan

There are also lots of tall apartments buildings in Busan as well.

Of course, I did not forget the purpose of my trip – To Take Fireworks Photos. I also surveyed at Gwangalli Beach to locate the best spot for me to take fireworks photo at night. Then, we headed back to hotel to rest and wait for evening.

]]> http://www.kokpinlab.com/travel/my-first-trip-to-korea-busan/feed/ 0 http://www.kokpinlab.com/play/my-recent-thailand-phuket-trip/ http://www.kokpinlab.com/play/my-recent-thailand-phuket-trip/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:03:39 +0000 KP Yang http://www.kokpinlab.com/?p=796

Taipei Hotels & Attractions

New year… new planning… A decision was made pretty last minutes to organize a family trip. [Drumroll] The destination selected is Taipei, Taiwan.

I have been busy spending time getting myself familiar with the Taipei key attraction points and planning for the upcoming Taipei trip itinerary. I was thinking of doing it more DIY and be able to tailor made our own itinerary based on our preference.

Google Map is Incredibly Good for Trip Planning

There are couples of websites that I visited to orientate myself to Taipei and its surrounding points of attraction, accommodation and of course, the night markets.

And there is one particular tool that I like the most and I find it being the most incredible tool that every DIY traveller must have.

That’s the Google Map.

I simply type in my targeted destination into Google Map search box. Click the “Search Map” button. Bravo, I can locate the destination using a thumbnail placemarker.

I continued this process, enter the destination one by one… finally I managed to create my own Taipei map with all the places that I have interest to visit.

I have categorized the placemarkers according to color:

• Red : Places of Interest
• Blue : Book Shops
• Magenta : Accommodation
• Green : Night Markets

View Taipei Attractions in a larger map

I have a problem Now!

There are just too many places on my map now that I do not have time to cover them all.

That is leading to my next task… I need to pick my final place to stay and final places to visit into a 4 full days visit in Taipei.