South Korea: Seeing The Countryside

For Monday, October 24, 2011

Busan

I packed my things and chatted for a few minutes with the beautiful Mina, the Korean girl who worked the front desk. Her English was really good. She had taken the job there to practice speaking English because she was engaged to a Welsh man who was teaching English in Busan. I was flying to Japan the next day, so I had bought a train ticket the day before from Busan to Seoul, and had booked a hostel in Incheon, since I was flying out of the airport there. To kill time until my train ride, I walked along Haeundae beach and explored a park at one end of it. I ate a quick lunch at a nearby Burger King. Fast food hamburgers are put together much better here than in the United States. It actually looks close to the picture on the menu! I had decided to save half the price of a bullet train and take the slower, five hour train. I listened to my music and some podcasts and ate a Snickers to last until I arrived in Seoul. It was a nice ride. I got to see some of the countryside as well. Mostly verdant hills covered in trees and other vegetation.

Seoul

When I arrived at Seoul Station, I mistakenly assumed that the airport express train that I needed to take to Incheon would be in the subway station, so I exited Seoul Station, entered the subway station there, bought a ticket to Incheon, and got on. After a few stops, I realized that the stop I needed wasn’t on that line because I was on the actual subway, not the express train, so I had to backtrack to the first subway station, exit it, reenter Seoul Station, and take the express train to the Unseo stop. I lost about two hours and arrived super late at about 11:30 PM.

Incheon

I had a woman at the information booth in the train station call my hostel, Lazy Bird Guest House, and the owner, Liz, picked me up. The weather had turned cold in Seoul, and the wind was blowing pretty hard. The hostel didn’t seem to have heating, so I put on my long underwear. I needed an onward flight ticket from Japan before entering, so I bought one that night before going to sleep.