Panstar to Busan

Friday, January 21st, 2011 in: News, Travel

As the time on my visa quickly drains away, I’m left sitting in a bathtub full of possibilities. Where to go next and where to go after that? Suddenly my life needs plans, not just for the following week, but for the coming months. This method of travel is hard to maintain; it takes a lot more forethought than I had anticipated. Visa dates, destinations, transport schedules, waiting for good fares… not to mention actually deciding where to go, in what order, and what to do there. This sounds like I’m complaining about living a pretty awesome life, but isn’t it in human nature to yearn for what we don’t have? Some stability, some responsibilities, a chance to work on something that makes a difference to people other than myself. I have to check myself when I start saying this out loud, as someone nearby invariably tells me to STFU, that they’d trade places with me any day. Sometimes I’m tempted to trade it in, at least for a while, but I know that a few months of stability turns into a few years a little too easily, and the next thing I know I’ll be yearning for instability again. There will be a time for that, but not yet.

I knew that I would be going to the Philippines soon, but it was still monsoon season there and my friend Janet was bouncing around the islands, so meeting with her was like trying to hit a moving target. Then like an angel from my past, my friend Drew told me he’d be returning to Seoul to teach English again, and that I was welcome to crash his floor for as long as I wanted. So, South Korea it is! But how to get there? Flights from Japan are rather expensive, and time-sensitive, so I opted to take a ferry from Osaka to Busan, which has fixed rates. Even better, the 16 hour ride would save me a night of accommodation, and put me in Busan in the morning, giving me the whole day to leisurely make my way to Seoul. I packed up my gear as best I could, said my goodbyes to my friends at Rewind, and set off once again for new lands.

If you take a 12 story hotel and turn it on its side and sail it between Japan and Korea, you’d have the Panstar Ferry. More an undersized budget cruise than a ferry, Panstar is probably the only way I’d travel between the two countries, so long as I’m not in a hurry.

The advantages of the ferries are numerous. It doesn’t make any difference in price how close to departure you purchase your tickets–you can walk right up to the ticket counter up to an hour before the ship sets sail–good news for the poor-planner. The ferries from Fukuoka and Shimonoseki aren’t too slow; as little as 4 hours are needed for the Beetle from Hakata, but if you choose the Panstar from Osaka, it’s a 16 19 hour crawl towards Busan in South Korea. Far from an inconvenience, the extra time is rather a blessing. I like to take my time getting from place to place, and the Panstar is comfortable, even in the standard rooms. The overnight trip came with dinner and breakfast tickets (a pleasant surprise, a pretty good but hurried buffet), and the cruise arranged some entertainment for the guests. I didn’t explore everything the ship had to offer, but considering the ferry comes with a night’s food and accommodation, it saved me a night in a hotel.

As an added bonus, one of my bunkmates was a Korean who had just finished a year of work in Australia, and was headed home in Daejeon, south of Seoul. Scott was traveling with Renee, his Taiwanese girlfriend, and since English is their only common language, we became fast friends after venturing up onto the upper deck to check out the sunset. They helped me exchange some money at the port with a shady-looking guy with a fat wad of cash, then showed me the way to the train station. I would’ve liked to spend more time checking out Busan, but I had promised my couchsurfing host I’d be in Seoul by the evening, and I didn’t want to get caught out by myself in a strange land, homeless and friendless. At least, not just yet.

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