Five Historic Places in Busan — Five Eras Stacked in One City

Layers of time stacked in one city.

1. Beomeosa — Silla. A large temple on the slope of Geumjeongsan, and the furthest of the five from the centre.
2. Busan Modern and Contemporary History Museum — the treaty port and the colonial period. It occupies the old Oriental Development Company building.
3. Provisional Capital Memorial Hall — the Korean War. The presidential residence of the 1,023 days Busan was the capital.
4. UN Memorial Cemetery — the same war, from another position. The war dead of the countries that fought it.
5. Huinnyeoul Culture Village — after the war. Lanes settled by refugees that became a neighbourhood.

That the middle three all fall in the first half of the twentieth century is the character of this city. The opened port, the colonial decades and the war followed one another inside fifty years, and each of the three left a building behind.

The five split in two. The Modern and Contemporary History Museum, the Provisional Capital Memorial Hall and the UN Memorial Cemetery have opening hours and interpretive signs. Beomeosa and Huinnyeoul Culture Village are places still in use.

That difference changes how you visit. The first three have a closing time, so they go into a schedule; the other two are where people worship or live, which makes it a question of manner rather than of hours. Huinnyeoul is a lane people live in — do not block their doors — and Beomeosa is a working temple with worshippers in it.

The UN Memorial Cemetery differs from the other two exhibition sites on this axis as well. Before it is a place with displays it is a cemetery, and it is not walked the way a sight is.

The Modern and Contemporary History Museum and the Provisional Capital Memorial Hall close on Mondays. Those two are what covers the early twentieth century here, so a Monday leaves a Silla temple, a cemetery and a village.

The Provisional Capital Memorial Hall also closes on 1 January.

If Monday is your only day in Busan and city history is the point, it is worth moving the date. If you are in Busan on a Monday anyway, make it the half-day for Beomeosa — it is too far out to pair with the two central museums on any other day regardless.

The five sit one apiece in Geumjeong-gu, Jung-gu, Seo-gu, Nam-gu and Yeongdo-gu — effectively across the whole city.

The workable groupings:

• Jung-gu and Seo-gu — the Modern and Contemporary History Museum and the Provisional Capital Memorial Hall. The two districts adjoin, which makes this the natural pair; both close on Mondays, so they also carry the same risk on the same day.
• A Beomeosa day — the only one of the five that takes half a day, and it shuts at 17:00. A late-afternoon start does not work.
• Nam-gu and Yeongdo-gu — the UN Memorial Cemetery and Huinnyeoul Culture Village each take an hour or two, but they are on opposite sides.

Do not try to fit all five into one day. Reading them in order of period and walking them in order are different exercises.