KoreanClass101.com Blog

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area but I currently live in a rural area near Yosemite National Park. When I was living in the Bay Area I regularly commuted by the Bart train (basically a subway system) and on occasion took Muni within the city. Now, however, I travel strictly via automobile. I can’t remember the last time I used public transportation within California, maybe 1992… Any trip overseas must rely on public transportation though, and my recent trip to Korea was no exception.

My trip begins at 8:00am Thursday morning with a three hour car trip to SFO (San Francisco International Airport). I am travelling with my parents and my oldest daughter. Our plane leaves at 1:20pm. We are flying United (I think they have the least amount of leg room available so beware of the reclined passenger in front of you.) and the flight departs at 1:23pm. We have plenty of time despite the lines at security. We arrive at 인천 at 6:35pm, ease through customs and head out into the airport proper. We are greeted by a large amount of photographers, reporters, TV crews, “welcome” signs and lots of flowers and flags. My dad is very impressed. Unfortunately, the welcome committee is not there for us. They are there to welcome back some kidnap victims from a fishing boat that fell victim to the Somali pirates. As soon as we are past the camera crews they all pack up their stuff and make a mad dash across the airport to the other customs exit. Oops, wrong door. My wife meets us though (very nice) and she has tickets for the limousine bus (리무진 버스) that will take us to 용산역. If you are traveling with luggage, this is really the only way to go from the airport but it isn’t cheap: 14,000 원 each.

The plane arrives an hour early but despite this we still have to wait until 10:50pm at the train station for the last 무궁화 train to 여수. So here I am in 용산 but am unable to browse the cool electronics stores that 현우 씨 has told us all about. We board the train and arrive in 여천 at about 4:15am. I believe there was a big exam that Friday and so the train was absolutely packed, standing room only for most of the trip with students returning to their homes. We had seats. I tried to sleep most of the trip. There are no more taxis waiting at the train station when we get there so we lug all of our stuff down to the main road and catch two taxis to the hotel. Our driver is not very talkative. He is just starting his shift. I am not feeling too talkative either. I’ve been up for quite some time.

By the time we get to the hotel it is about 4:30am Saturday. So the trip from my house to the hotel in Korea (including the time change of +17 hours) has taken roughly 44 hours! We have travelled by personal car, plane, bus, train and taxi. We have also travelled within Korea just about as far away from 서울 as possible. In hindsight it may have been better to stay in 서울 upon arrival and toured a bit before descending to 여수. However, my first stop really needs to be a visit to family…