Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Seoul 11.12 - airport to downtown transportation

There are a few different ways you can go from Incheon International Airport (ICN) to Seoul. The most effective (and easy) ways are: 1) Take the Airport Railroad Express (AREX) or the regular subway system or 2) Take the Airport Limousine Bus, where they make stops in front of many different hotels (large or small) in different major areas. The Official Site of Korea Tourism has detailed information on how to get to downtown Seoul from ICN on its web site.

Since it's John and my first trip to Seoul, we chose to take the Airport Limousine Bus because we could be certain that the bus will take us to our hotel and we would be at ease and comfortable. Here's a list of the Airport Limousine Bus numbers and their correspondent stops.

During our 5 nights in Seoul we stayed at the Western COOP hotel, which is located in Dongdaemun, and Airport Limousine Bus 6001 makes a stop right in front of it! It's 14,000w per person each way, and who'd know, while I was doing research for our trip I came across a coupon for certain Airport Limousine Bus numbers, including 6001 that I was going to take! It's for 1,000w off!

Below is the coupon. From what I know you can print it out (one per person, per way) and use it at any of the bus numbers indicated on it. For both John and I, I printed out 4 (Two each way from and to the airport.) 

To take Airport Limousine Bus 6001 we wen to the ground transportation area designated for it (Floor 1, bay 6A or 12B, per the Airport Bus Guide.) and waited for the bus. I saw that some passengers bought their tickets in advance at the booth, but since I read you could just hand 13,000w +1 coupon per person to the driver and the driver would know what you needed, I just waited for Bus 6001 to show up and got on with John, each with 13,000w + 1 coupon in our hand, and voila! 

While we were waiting for the bus, there was a kind gentleman who came up to us and asked if we needed help (because we probably looked slightly lost, even though we were not.) He talked simple English and so did we. He made sure we knew where we were going, and that Bus 6001 would indeed take us where we wanted to be (Dongdaemun.) He even checked with the driver to confirm that it would stop in front of Western COOP. He was so kind. We instantly felt welcome! 
on the bus.

After we got on the bus we just relaxed and enjoyed the ride. While on the bus I saw downtown Seoul for the first time, and was getting more and more excited about the next few days we're spending in this fascinating city, until the speaker on the bus told us we were at our destination. 

View from the bus of one of the stops Bus 6001 made. (Seoul Staton.)

And I was already slowly falling in love with Seoul!

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