Hotel Central Bay

Busan's Gwangalli Beach runs along the front of this hotel, with Gwangan Bridge lit up across the bay after dark. The building rises 17 storeys above the sand, with two further levels below ground, and holds 134 rooms across six categories. Rooms range from a compact Business Single facing the city to a Deluxe Family Ondol with heated floors in the Korean tradition, and a Suite sized for longer family stays. Ocean-facing rooms look past a section of exterior wall that clips the far left edge of the view, a quirk of the building's shape rather than the room plan. Each room carries a flat-screen television with more than a hundred channels, free wifi and bottled water. KUROMATSU handles the hotel's dining, plated with a visual precision to match its flavour. illy runs the café on site, pulling Italian coffee with the beach and bridge in view through the window. A gym and a business centre round out the facilities, the latter set on the fourth floor for guests working between meetings. Check-in runs from 3pm, checkout by 11am the next day. It is a straightforward stay, built around one long stretch of sand and a bridge that changes colour at night.