The last morning in Incheon is the quietest one yet. I woke up at six, before the heat had a chance to wake up itself, and stood at the window of my hotel room watching the city do the same. The air smelled like the sea and exhaust and something green. I thought about how the first morning here, the air had hit me like a wet blanket. This time it just felt like home.
I stayed at the UH FLAT The Songdo for the week — a good base for the practical stuff, close to the metro and to the Songdo business district where I spent most of my time. The room didn't matter much because I was always out. But now, packing my bag, I noticed the corner where I'd dumped my wet socks after the first day's walk, the spot on the desk where I sorted my ARC paperwork. A week of small habits. The hotel doesn't know it, but it watched me become a resident.
Before I checked out, I wanted one more coffee at Forest Outings, the little café in the Songdo neighbourhood that saved my life more than once this week. I ordered an americano — about 4,500 won, roughly three dollars — and sat by the window. The barista was used to me by now. She didn't ask what I wanted. She just started making it when I walked in. That's the kind of thing that makes you feel like you're not a tourist anymore.
After coffee, I did something I'd been putting off: I looked at flats one last time. Not seriously — I'm not signing anything from here. But I wanted to see the place the agent mentioned earlier, the one in Yeonsu-gu near the canal. One-bedroom flats in the city centre run about 819,000 won a month, around six hundred dollars. That's real. That's what a life here costs before you add the groceries and the transport and the occasional bowl of noodles. I stood outside the building and tried to imagine having a key to it. It didn't feel like a fantasy. It felt like a plan.
Then I took the metro to the part of Incheon I hadn't said goodbye to properly. Not Chinatown — that was yesterday's chapter. I went to the Incheon Landing Operation Memorial Hall, up on the hill near the coast. It's a modest museum, the kind of place you don't hear about until you're already standing in front of it. I learned about Operation Chromite, the September 1950 landing that changed the Korean War. The maps, the photos, the timeline — it made me see the city differently. Not just as my new home, but as a place where history had a shape you could trace with your finger.
The museum hall is air-conditioned and quiet, and I lingered longer than I meant to. On my way out, there was a small plaque listing the names of soldiers who landed on these beaches. I didn't know any of them. That felt wrong, in a way. So I stood there and said nothing and just read all the names. It was my small act of paying attention before I left the city.
From the memorial, I walked down toward the port. That's where Wolmido waits, the little amusement quarter on the water. I'd been there on my second day, when everything was new and overwhelming. Now it was familiar. The same funfair rides, the same fishy smell coming off the water, the same low grey sky holding in the heat. But I wasn't the same person who'd walked here four days ago. I had an ARC in my wallet now. I could name the districts that mattered. I knew what a jjajangmyeon should taste like.
I hadn't planned to ride the Wolmi Sea Train again. It's a short little monorail that runs along the seawall, slow and orange and a little sad. But I found myself buying a ticket anyway. About 5,000 won for a round trip, maybe four dollars. The train ambles along past the beach and the cafes and the fishing boats, and the West Sea stretches out to the west, barely a breath of wind. I sat in the middle of a carriage with a couple of families who were there for the afternoon, their kids pressing their faces to the glass.
At the last station, I got off and walked to the water's edge. You can see the ferries lined up, the ones that go to the islands. I wasn't going to take one today. I was just looking. There's something about watching boats leave that makes you think about leaving. But here's the thing: I wasn't sad. I was just in the middle of a week-long arrival, and this was the end of the first chapter.
I picked a small restaurant along the seawall for my last meal in Incheon. A bowl of jjajangmyeon — black bean noodles, the dish this city claims as its own, born in Chinatown and now everywhere. It cost about 7,000 won, five dollars. The family at the next table was celebrating something, and the ajumma who brought me my food smiled when she saw me take a messy first bite. I ate slowly, watching the boats through the window, and I thought: this is what it feels like to become a resident. You learn what to order, where to sit, how to say thank you without thinking about it.
After lunch, I made my way back toward the hotel to collect my bag, but I took the long way through Sinpo International Market. The food stalls were doing their weekend business — trays of dakgangjeong, fried chicken glazed in soy and garlic, and tteokbokki bubbling in red sauce. I got a small plate of the chicken, about 12,000 won for a proper meal, and ate it standing up, leaning on a table that was sticky with old sauce. That was my goodbye to the market, though I didn't phrase it that way to myself at the time.
Before heading to the airport, I stopped by my bank — the Hana Bank branch near the airport terminal — to print 200,000 won in cash. About a hundred and fifty dollars. This is the part that feels small but matters. I wanted to have enough for the next leg without relying on ATMs late at night. The teller recognized me. She'd helped me the day before. It's that kind of city. Incheon is not Seoul, and thank goodness for that.
I took the AREX back to the airport in the late afternoon. The platform was crowded with people coming and going, and I stood with my bag between my feet, thinking about the week. I'd arrived with two suitcases and a list of things to do. I was leaving with an Alien Registration Card, a bank account, a postpaid phone plan, a T-money card with a little credit left on it. And more than that, I had a map of the city in my head — not the tourist map, but the one you build when you miss a turn and find a noodle shop, when you step off the train at the wrong stop and see a market you didn't know existed.
The train hummed along, and the windows were full of the afternoon light that makes everything look soft and forgiving. I thought about the future legs of this orientation summer — the islands, the beaches, the late harvests down south. But for now, this was the last day in Incheon. The gateway. The place that lets you in.
One thing I want to remember: the weight of a week. It doesn't feel like a holiday, when you're doing paperwork and riding the metro and learning the difference between the express and the all-stop AREX. But it is. It's a different kind of travel, the kind that starts with a passport and ends with a key.
So here is my practical closing note, if you're planning your own first base in Korea. Give yourself more than three days. A week is barely enough. You need a T-money card, about 3,000 to 5,000 won, and you can get it at any GS24 or CU at the airport. You need to apply for your ARC within 90 days of arrival — that's your lifeline for banking, phones, apartment contracts. Open a bank account with your passport and ARC; Hana, Shinhan, KB, Woori — it doesn't matter which, but choose one near your accommodation so the tellers learn your face. And when you've done all that, when you have the card and the account and the phone plan, do what I did today: take the slow train, eat the noodles, say goodbye. Because that's when you realise the city already let you in.
The sun was setting as the train pulled into the airport station. A low orange light spilled across the terminal's glass wall. I stood for a moment with my bag, watching the people move in long curves around me, the way they do in a thousand airports everywhere. Then I turned toward the hotel subway entrance — not the terminal. I wasn't flying anywhere tonight.
I had one last thing to do. On my way out of the airport terminal, I stopped at the tourist information desk and picked up a map of the islands — the ones you have to take a permit to visit, the NLL islands near the Northern Limit Line. I didn't need it yet. But I wanted something that reminded me that this country is more than the cities you can see from an apartment window. It's an archipelago. And I'm going to take my time crossing it.
That's it for Incheon. For now. I'm on the overnight train to the south coast tomorrow morning. But before I go, I want to say annyeonghaseyo one more time, to the city that stamped my card, filled my bank account, and taught me how to order noodles without pointing. You'll hear from me from the West Sea soon. But I'm taking tonight to let this week settle. Sometimes the best thing you can do after arriving is sit still for a while.
The hotel room is already packed. The lights of Songdo are turning on outside the window. Tomorrow, I go. But tonight, I'll sleep in the city that decided to take me in. That's not nothing. That's the whole point, really.
Until next time, from the road. 안녕.