Korean Job Discussion Forums

[FDNY]

I have read in some posts where people claim to be able to come to Seoul in no time at all from all these weird places in the deep south. I don't buy it.

Let the distance between Seoul and Incheon equal one and recognize the actual distance is 26.74Km. Moreover the Yongsan Express subway between the two cities takes about 45 minutes. Given this, we can draw the following conclusions.

Daegu: 8.3 times farther than Incheon, therefore 8.3 X 45 = 360 minutes.
Busan: 10.3 times farther than Incheon, therefore 10.3 X 45 = 463.5 minutes.
Daejon: 4.6 times farther than Incheon, therefore 4.6 X 45 = 207 minutes.
Gwangju: 8.3 times farther than Incheon, therefore 8.3 X 45 = 360 minutes.
Cheonan: 9.6 times farther than Incheon, therefore 9.6 X 45 = 432 minutes.
Incheon: 1 times farther than Incheon, therefore 1 X 45 = 45 minutes.

The KTX may make these times faster, but it still stops between cities and is expensive.

BTW, I'm desk-warming today.

[UknowsI]

The subway is much slower than most forms of inter-city travel. Let's just look at your numbers for Daejeon:

Your number: 207 minutes
Bus: 100-130 minutes
KTX 50-60 minutes

[oldtactics]

The bus from Namhae Island, which is pretty close to as deep south as you can get, to Nambu in Seoul, takes 4-4.5 hours direct, in normal traffic.

According to the express bus website, Mokpo, way down in the SW corner, only takes around 5 hours to Seoul.

I don't think there's anywhere in Korea that would take anywhere near 400 minutes, unless there were stops along the way.

[jvalmer]

Hop on the KTX one time, it's pretty fast. The Saemaul is maybe slower by 25%-50%. Mugunghwa is painfully slow, it stops at every town along the way, but you do get to catch up on sleep.

[jonpurdy]

Ulsan to Seoul is 4.5 hours by bus, two hours and 20 minutes by KTX. So Busan would be slightly more than that.