With Midwestern roots, I’ve always been an Ice Hockey fan. Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve always sought out tickets to catch a local game and living in England is no exception. That said, England isn’t well known for Ice Hockey but it’s location makes it a convenient and quick flight to some great teams. Thus, I was looking to find a game for a 3-day weekend in February but was surprised at the lack of success I was having. I thought, “why am I not finding any games to go to?” and then it dawned on me - the Winter Olympics!
Of course I wasn’t finding any games, all European players were going to be at PyeongChang, South Korea. It only took me another five seconds to think … “well, problem would be solved if I got tickets to the Olympics - intriguing.” And that was it, I started looking into games and saw that on the weekend I wanted to travel, USA and Russia would be facing off in a hockey game and there were still tickets available. Visions of the 1980 Olympics with Herb Brooks and Miracle on Ice starting dancing around in my head and I couldn’t help myself, I immediately purchased game tickets and a flight to Seoul.
Now for the hard part, on site logistics and accommodations. I wasn’t completely insane and did check availability for hotels in Seoul prior to buying my game ticket. There was a new bullet train line from Seoul to PyeongChang that was supposed to be a great connection for Olympic visitors. Unfortunately what seemingly failed to make the mainstream news was the local holiday overlapping during the Olympics and how train tickets open to locals FIRST and then internationally about ten hours later. Not such a problem except train tickets sold out in less than 30 minutes as all the locals travel on that holiday. This posed one of the largest logistical challenges I’ve faced traveling and having bought my game tickets three weeks before the game, I had very little time to figure this all out.
I started emailing travel writers and bloggers who had written articles about traveling to the Olympics to see if anyone could point me in the direction of some on the ground information. There was only one response I received, and it was the catalyst in finding information. The writer had heard of the issues and pointed me to a new Facebook group of individuals all in the same boat and trying to info share. When I joined there were less than 100 members on the page and by the time I left, there were over 1,000 … so many people were desperately trying to find information. This Facebook page became a lifeline! People would post if train tickets were getting released or which departing stations had more tickets available, how to get busses or a mix of train and bus, anyway to get from Seoul to the Olympics. As someone who has a love/hate relationship regarding social media, this was one of those times I was happy that social media existed.
I was finally able to snag a train ticket from the Northern Seoul stop, Cheongnyangni, to Gangneung. The Olympics actually consisted of three main areas; PyeongChang, Jinbu and Gangneung. Although PyeongChang was the Olympics poster child where the stadium with the Olympic flame resided, Gangneung was actually where the heart of the Olympic livelihood could be found. Commuting each day to and from Seoul was out of the question with the train ticket situation so next step was desperately trying to find accommodation near Gangneung. I found a couple hotels that were not complete highway robbery to my bank account, but there was little info available around them. There were no reviews as these had just been built and opened in time for the Olympics so I did not know what I was about to get myself into. That said, I had to take a leap of faith, so I booked one of the hotels and crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t be sleeping in a construction site in a creepy area of town.
So then I booked my Korean Air flight, downloaded every possible Olympics and South Korea transport app to my phone and from Amazon ordered my red, white and blue USA winter scarf to excitedly don during my trip - Bon Voyage!
Wheels up from London to Seoul and the flight was less than half full, which wonderfully meant for me, a whole row to myself! In a twelve hour flight in economy, an empty row is like a winning lotto ticket and I was able to lay down and try to get some sleep. In lieu of the Olympics, Seoul also opened a brand new beautiful airport but was only allowing Korean Air (and partners) to land there, it felt so calm and empty. I generally speed walk, almost jog down the terminals after deplaning to get to immigration as quickly as possible before the herd, and after this landing i walked up to about fifteen empty lanes for immigration and was on the other side in two minutes. From there i was greeted by Soohorang and Bandabi, the life size Olympic mascots to remind me what I was doing here. With the excitement bubbling, I proceeded to pick up my pre-ordered SIM card in the arrivals area, although I have international data coverage and text, I wasn’t sure how strong it would be, especially in the more remote Olympic areas. Then I popped onto the convenient, efficient and immaculately clean AREX train to guide me into my adventure beginning in the heart of Seoul, I had a lot to tackle in three days!
