The other day I asked my co-workers if there was anything to do or see around Incheon, since I’m only about 10 stops away on the subway and had only been in the city when I flew into Korea at the Incheon International Airport. They did not seem really impressed with Incheon and the area, but it’s the closest I can get to the ocean in a hurry and with the weather starting to warm up, Josh and I headed out there to see if there was, in fact, anything to be seen.
As soon as we walked out from the subway platform we found ourselves directly across from the only “official” (there are others?) Chinatown in Korea. It’s really just a small hill with some shops and restaurants lining each side. The trinket shops were fun and interesting and filled with all sorts of useless stuff, which is exactly what a souvenir shop should be. There were stuffed tigers, jade Buddhas and embroidered slippers- everything I would never need, but it will all still a find a way in my suitcase.
Once we reached the top of the hill, it opened up into “Freedom Park,” a pretty green area meant to celebrate and commemorate the Korea-U.S. relationship and to honor General McArthur who designed the Incheon landing that helped turn the tide in the Korean War. (After reading The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam I’m not really this man’s biggest fan, but it was interesting to see anyway.) Josh was pumped because there was a man selling cotton candy off the back of his mo-ped.
From there, we decided that we definitely wanted to check out the beaches since we were so close and headed back towards the subway station where there’s a tourist information center. They helped us into a cab ( about $5) to get to Wolmido. Wolmido is a fun little area with a small carnival with really impressive Viking ship rides and you can catch a ferry if you want over to the islands. We didn’t really know what we were doing so we just found a line and got in it. It was about $3/person I think for the ferry ride over to Yongyu Island which is actually where Incheon Airport is located.
After Josh’s first ferry ride (exciting!) we made it to…well, at first glance a whole lot of nothing. A bus stop, basically. After finding out the bus we wanted would be about an hour, we wasted time by wandering into…a…shantytown. This country never ceases to amaze me.
Finally, we made it to the beach! It was really pretty, but absolutely freezing, so after getting a good look and some photos, we got back on a bus headed to the airport subway station and trained it back home.
It was a fun daytrip. My favorite part was when a girl was trying to explain why our bus was stopping by miming eating rice with chopsticks and then pretending to drive crazily. Turns out she was trying to let us know “the bus needed to eat,” or as her friend bluntly said, “fuel injection.”
Everyday Tourist 