This past weekend a group of us made our way to Changwon to celebrate a friends birthday. Being 10 in number leaving from Geoje we were a legitimate crew. We left on Saturday morning taking the 5:45am bus(11200 won). This is early to begin with but being misinformed I was at the bus station at 4:45 and this after going to bed around midnight and waking up at 2:30 to my neighbor throwing all of her pots on the ground. Needless to say I was tired and I slept the 1 hour and 45 minute bus ride away.
My first impressions of Changwon were that it was a nice spacious city as there was an abnormal(to Korea) lack of tall buildings in the area of the bus station. The sun was shining, the air smelt fresh and we in a city that no one really knew anything about, were on a real life adventure!
We took city bus 103 (1100 won) to a place where we would be spending the night, the Hotel Jeowon. It was a nice looking place with clean rooms which was more than we could ask for so we dropped our bags and headed out to explore the city.
We made our way to the sporting complex which had a soccer field, a basketball stadium, a velodrome and a mystery building that looked like it was from Star Wars.
Here we found a bicycle museum with sweet (stationary) bikes to ride.
This amused us until we saw real bikes that we could rent to tour the city. To rent the bikes you needed to have a special card. Since we didn't we went to the office and with a bit of difficulty, gave them a couple of phones as a deposit for them to rent us the bikes. It ended up being 1000 won for 2 hours which was cheap and it was great fun!
On our ride we saw the sights and ate some lunch. Top Tip: Pizza Pro has Koreas worst pizza.
After bringing back the bikes we made our way to the velodrome for the 2:30 races which were interesting to say the least. In Korea the velodrome is a gambling facility, people go there with the purpose to bet on who will win the race. As a result entry is a cool 400 won($0.40). No pictures were permitted so I have no way to show you but there were 7 riders per race, each was wearing a different color jersey and you would bet based on their color. We never really did figure out the odds off winning something based on a random guess and it took 30 minutes between each 4 minute race but definitely a worth stopping by to check it out at least.
Stopped by an arcade with a batting cage to test our mettle.(20 balls for 1000 won)
We then split up, some went back to the hotel to get a bit of a rest while the others went shopping. We met back up at 7:00 and by this time our number had ballooned to some where around 15. We went for supper at Bombay, an Indian restaurant in the same building as the hotel. It was fabulous!
I would dare say that it was the best meal I have eaten in Korea. Prices for a meal range from 15000 - 20000 won($15-20) pretty standard price for what it was and most definitely worth it. From there we finished off the night at the place next door called O'Brians. The next day some of the girls were going to a Korea wedding so the crew broke up and we went separate ways.
Overall I would have to say Changwon was a great place to spend a Saturday hanging out with friends.
I recommend.
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