ferry to korea

i knew that getting a ferry at a chinese port wouldn't be a piece of cake, so i left a good 6 hours of buffer before the departure, you never know. stocked up on cup noodles and drinks, took a metro, and then started walking towards the gps location i had found in someone's blog post. the heat was insane, i was sweating buckets after just five minutes, but soon arrived at the location where i found: a construction fence. and with that, i already thought that was going to be it.

i just kept on wandering, went through and out of the back of a shopping mall, where through the trees, i saw what looked like a terminal to me. made my way there and sure enough, i was in the right place - that's step one. step two followed quickly, they still had plenty tickets to sell, actually for a lot cheaper than what it said online. to my surprise, i also met a french guy at the ticket counter, he even spoke perfect german because he lives in berlin, so we went to grab lunch while the chinese got out tickets approved.

when we came back, the entire waiting room was empty all of a sudden. they had started boarding too early, but we quickly caught up with the rest of the passengers, including another german guy and a norwegian bikepacker. after customs, we formed a little clique and got settled in the 48-man sleeping hall, which was actually a lot better than it sounds.

soon enough, the ferry left shore. the crossing was great but uneventful, other than the fact that the water boilers for the noodles weren't working until the last ten minutes and that i was so tired from the day that i went to bed too early and spent my night sitting on the deck listening to music.

customs in korea was a breeze, but they but a little barcode sticker in my passport instead of a stamp, which i hated. now in incheon, we had to find a way to get inland. it took us a while to figure it out, but eventually, we had our transport cards in hand and got on the way to seoul.Read more