Home Resume Blog
☰
Nicole Shoblom
email
Image 1

Outside of busy Seoul station on Friday April 4, 2025. Arrived here in mid-morning to take the KTX speed train to Ulsan

Image 2

Jeremy checking out the train schedule board at Seoul station for our train to Gyeongju in route to Bugulsan, which is located in Buk-gu, Ulsan

Image 3

Second train between Gyeongju and Bugulsan.

Image 4

Ezra ended up sitting on my lap during the train ride to Gyeongju because Korail seated us in different cars and we couldn't change seats.

Image 5

Atticus reading his book on the train as part of a school reading challenge

Image 6

Taxi ride from Bugulsan station to our hotel. Many of the streets in Ulsan were lined with full-bloom cherry blossom trees (벚꽃).

Image 7

View from our hotel, the Mercure Ambassador Ulsan

Image 8

Entering Gangdong Beach (강동해벽). Just a short walk from our hotel. Camping, grilling, and fireworks are permitted at this beach.

Image 9

This beach is also called Gangdong Pebble Beach, and it's clear why! Infinite amount of beautiful pebbles at this beach!

Image 10

Ezra picking up pebbles that he likes. <3

Image 11

Ezra showing off the rocks he has collected.

Image 12

Atticus unknowingly posing for the portrait mode picture <3

Image 13

Discovering Gangdong Jungang Park at sunset. The park consisted of 3 playgrounds going up a big hill.

Image 14

Second highest playground at Gangdong Jungang Park. Discovered a 3 story climbing structure that the kids couldn't get enough of.

Image 15

Ezra climbing the structure with no fear!

Image 16

Atticus was very quick to figure out how to get to the very top of the climbing structure.

Image 17

Reward at the top was a huge slide to ride down. It was difficult to get the slide and structure into one frame because it was so huge!

Image 18

Gangdong Jungang Park sign lighted up at night

Image 19

Atticus posing with a lighted up art sculpture at Gangdong Jungang park.

Image 20

Although there isn't too much to do in Buk-Gu, we did find a cool Karaoke spot in town. It was the first time for our kids to visit a 노래방 (karaoke room), and they loved it!

Train to Ulsan

April 18, 2025 | Seoul, South Korea

It’s on my to-do-list to watch Train to Busan, and take the train there for real! But recently, I did take a Korail speed KTX train from Seoul to Ulsan for a 2박 3일 (2 night, 3 day) weekend getaway with the family. We booked the train tickets only a week in advance, and we were lucky to find enough seats. However, we were all placed in non-adjacent seats and in different cars! I could not figure out seat selection on the Korail site with economy tickets. But when there is enough seats, Korail will automatically seat your party together. Lesson learned - book Korail speed train tickets one month in advance! We did try to change our seats at the Seoul Station ticket counter about an hour before our departure, but all seats were sold out and only standing room was available. Another lesson I learned as a first time KTX ticket buyer - don’t buy your tickets on railmonsters.com (AI might recommend this). Just buy them directly from Korail, but be sure to take screenshots of your tickets (even if the site says you can't use screenshots of tickets). And one more tip - if you can't get train tickets, flying into Ulsan airport is also an option. We actually flew back to Gimpo airport in Seoul from Ulsan airport at the end of our trip. Ulsan airport was small, not busy, and security was fast to get through. Ulsan is in the South East of South Korea just North of Busan. We stayed right on the ocean in 강동 in 북구 (Gang neighborhood in Buk district), which was a quiet, small town, but lightly peppered with high rise apartments and hotels, including ours. Shortly after checking in, we took a stroll along Gangdong Beach on our way to dinner. The beach was of course stunning, and we discovered that you can camp, have fires, and shoot off fireworks on the beach. However, the real highlight of our walk was 강동중앙공원 (Gangdong Jungang Park). This park was a set of 3 playgrounds going up a hill. The second highest playground had a 3 story climbing structure that my boys climbed like pros. Their motivation was of course the long slide they could ride from the very top. To my readers - If I visit Gangdong again, it will be to camp on the beach. If you check it out, be ready for the desire to explore outside of the town. This will of course require some traveling by bus, car, or taxi. In fact, we also visited Gampo and Daewangam on this trip. and And if all else fails, you can always have fun at a Noraebang (노래방) aka Karaoke room! Thanks for reading and 오세요 (come) again!.