Haeundae Beach

This guide to Haeundae Beach in Busan opens with a photographer watching the lifeguard crew drill on the sand before the first umbrella opens, then rewinds more than eleven hundred years to a Silla scholar who carved his name into the headland rock after falling for the view. From there it follows the beach through a colonial-era hot spring resort, wartime refugees sheltering on the sand, and its postwar rise into a summer escape lined with hotels and towers. It's a story about how a small fishing village became a coastline that now needs constant watching.