It was actually our ang mo bud Matt who alerted me to the political tensions that started overnight two days ago: the headlines reported that the South Korean president had declared martial law in the country. That immediately got me pretty worried, and I checked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs web site for travel advisories. Oddly, there was nothing: which gave me a small bit of assurance, since our MFA is usually pretty prompt on this sort of thing. Thankfully, martial law was lifted just hours later, though there is the usual political fallout that comes with botched political wrangling like this.
Our relief was short-lived though: because shortly after martial law was lifted, we got news that workers at their national rail company were going on strike. Oh my. Strikes would mean likely disruptions to our travel plans, since we’d be doing a fair bit of intercity travel over during trip, and we’d already made train bookings for the Incheon to Busan, and Suncheon to Seoul journeys. Not wanting to chance it, we immediately set about looking for alternate transportation options for these two journeys – basically travel by bus.
Thanks to the missus, we were able to secure express bus bookings for both transits, and these offered a 95% refund as long as we cancelled an hour or so before the bus departs. The 5% loss of booking fees is trival compared to the peace of mind we’d get in return. As it is right now, thankfully, we’ve gotten confirmation that our Incheon to Busan train ride is proceeding as planned. Hopefully, the worker strike is lifted on Day 09 when we make our way to Seoul from Suncheon.
Our SQ flight from Singapore to Incheon was uneventful – none of the difficulties we saw last year about our plane about to takeoff and having to return back to the departure gate because of technical problems. Though after having flew Japan Airlines for my recent work-trip, I told the missus that we should seriously consider flying with this Japanese carrier: they afford more leg room than SQ, their seats – even in economy – are at a naturally comfortable incline already, and their inflight F&B was as good as SQ’s.
We expected our national carrier to arrive at their destination airports on time, if not early. Nonetheless, we buffered plenty of time for our two connections: from Incheon International Airport to Seoul, and from Seoul to Busan. You know, apart from the possibility that our flight might arrive late, it’s been 18 years since our vacation – and a honeymoon at that – to South Korea, so we played it safe. Our fears were unfounded: our flight into Incheon International Airport landed earlier than scheduled in fact – at 7:00AM and 25 minutes earlier than the originally scheduled arrival time of 7:25AM. Those time savings evaporated quick though: the immigration queue was very long and we took 35 minutes to get to our turn. After that, it was a brisk 5 minute walk to the Airport Railroad terminal to catch our express 8:48AM AREX ride to Seoul.
My first impressions of Seoul Station? Well, it’s massive, but oddly not nearly as confusing for first-timers compared to the say Shinjuku Station. Upon exiting the AREX platform, we found the connecting terminal for KTX, got to the correct platform for our KTX train ride to Busan, and boarded a half-filled train departing 10:28AM.
There are plenty of joking comments about taking a train to Busan, and I have to confess that a small part of me was disappointed that there weren’t any zombies in sight during our ride. We’d booked first class seats for the KTX ride as the price difference between that to economy seats was minimal. Comparing between the KTX and the Shinkansen: honestly for non-fussy tourists like us, I thought there was little to distinguish between the two: both are comfortable, and both get to where we need to on time, though in all fairness, if the Koreans are generally strict about train punctuality outside the odd incident like this recent one, the Japanese would be next level fanatical.
Our place of stay for five nights in Busan is right beside a subway station just south of Busan station. Our Airbnb host had provided detailed instructions on how to get to the property. We checked into the apartment, rest a bit, then took a cab to our first place: Gwangalli Beach, and also to catch the drone show in the evening. The drone show is a permanent drone light show in South Korea, and has been running since 2023 at Gwangalli Beach. There are two shows every Saturday: 7PM and 9PM. From the looks of it, there were probably a few hundred drones in the about 10 minute show, and is pretty alright as these things go: the drones flying with a predefined script and form-up to show different images in the night sky.
The Gwangalli beach stretch itself was very lively this weekend evening, with many tourists and locals about, dining, enjoying the cold but pleasant weather. Cab hailing was also a cinch using the K-Ride app: cabs arrived within mere minutes both directions to and fro our apartment and the beach area. But if you’re driving into the area, do be aware that traffic moves fairly slowly on these weekend evenings, and I imagine finding spaces to park would likewise be difficult too.
It’d be a pretty long Day 02 tomorrow exploring Busan, so we headed back after the light show ended to wash-up and catch-up on sleep: none of us got much sleep during the red eye flight from Singapore to Incheon this morning!