My very first thought on opening my brand new Korean phrasebook, was ‘oh no, what have I let myself in for’. Having spent the best part of a year learning some basic Japanese, and the various Japanese alphabets, I had mistakenly come to the conclusion that as I could say ‘Konnichiwa’ and even spell it in hiragana（こんにちは ）that Korean wouldn’t be that difficult. It is.
I’m not one to quit though, so I decided to stop off in South Korea for a few days anyway, while on my way to Okinawa (more about that later).
Incheon International airport is on an island some way outside Seoul and the cheapest or simplest way of getting to the city centre is to take the subway, which takes about an hour to Seoul station. If you are feeling rich or are pushed for time there is also an express train, which gets you there in half the time, but only runs half hourly, so it may be as well to take the slow train! There are automatic ticket machines which can display the screen in English, but be aware they only take cash. The fee was KRW 4500 including a KRW 500 deposit for the travel pass. You can get this back if you use the refund machine at your destination.
I had intended to spend an hour or two in Seoul before moving on, but there were two factors preventing this; it was getting late (I hadn’t factored in subway travel time) and it was raining. So after a quick picture of Seoul station it was time to head for the KTX platform for the train to Busan.
KTX rail tickets can be ordered online in advance, but I bought mine on the day as I didn’t know which train I would be on and seats are all reserved. Credit cards can be used here! Seoul to Busan takes around 2.5 hours by KTX and when I travelled was around KRW 59000.
Twintail 