I was in Seoul once before. Late summer of 2009. I stayed with my brother, who was in Seoul for work and who had a large apartment near the River. If I taught any English, I could easily pay back my flight and other expenses. The U.S. was at the height of the recession, and I had been furloughed at work.
It was hard for me to believe that 7 years had already passed between my visits. Indeed, Incheon Airport appeared identical. The smell was exactly the same – granite. I cleared customs and cashed in $100 for 114,500 Won, teh Google giving the rate as 1187. (I am always surprised at people who think the airport has bad rates, and go without cash until they are at a bank that supposedly gives a marginally better rate, even though the convenience of the English speaking tellers right at the airport is hard to beat. Murphy’s Law also implies the exchange rate will nose-dive after you arrive and before you exchange your cash, so waiting may well cost you more than you save.)
One change I had heard about was some sort of mag-lev/express train. I envisioned this to be Korea’s response to the Shanghai mag-lev, and promptly purchased a ticket for W8000. Upon riding the mag-lev, I was struck by the fact that it seemed to go only ~20mph. Inspecting the map posted above the train door, I realized it just went to the various parking lots. Thanks to the mag-lev detour, I missed my actual train by ~30 seconds. This had me concerned because the ticket said ‘”consult receipt for seat assignment”‘ which seemed to imply I might need to buy another ticket. However, it looked like the train I missed was less than half-full, so I hoped this wouldn’t be a problem.
The next train (half hour later, which is very infrequent for Seoul transit) was 90% full. I sat in the seat I had been assigned on my ticket (even though it was the wrong time) and nobody gave me any funny looks or looked at their ticket as they walked past my seat. The conductor checked the tickets of the people sitting in front of me, but didn’t ask for mine. I assumed she didn’t want to waste any time dealing with a dumb foreigner.
In the end, I met my brother at the subway stop near our apartment a little after noon, despite my 8:00 am arrival. I also managed to keep normal hours to minimize jet-lag, even after a 10 hour bus ride followed by two 8 hour plane rides and the layovers in between.
In conclusion, just take the “all-stops” train from the airport if you think there is any chance you’ll confuse an express train with a mag-lev.
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