I spent four days in Incheon doing research, going to a musical festival, and exploring the city!

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. I recently started a job as a Fulbrighter, at the time of typing this, and I’m finding one of the ways that I’ve continued to stay sane is by going on little side quests here and there.

So I mentioned the new job, which is actually moving to South Korea on a Fulbright award. I’m doing documentary poetry work here in Korea for the next ten months (at the time of typing this), which means beyond my working hours I’m going to try and travel around the country!

Today’s blog post comes from a bit of an impulsive purchase. I ended up purchasing tickets for the XMF Music Festival because One Ok Rock is my all-time favorite band, but once I saw the full line-up, I decided to purchase the two day pass and get a hotel in the area. Because my schedule a bit more flexible, I booked my hotel for Friday to Monday, as I didn’t want to rush to the area during the festival.

Anyways, I stayed at Incheon Airport Songdo The Seolleim Hotel Stay for about $120 USD for four nights. This does not include breakfast. I would stay here again, although it’s about an hour from Paradise City and the airport on public transport (~30 minutes via taxi). It was a solid location in the middle of several big tourist attractions (for Incheon), and I was able to get there in a little over an hour and a half on public transport from Seoul.

Let’s get into what I did during this trip!

Day One: Commuting into Incheon, conducting research, Wolmido and Chinatown

From where I am in Seoul, it took an hour and a half to get to Incheon. I chose a particularly brutal route to get to my hotel, but before I left, I cleaned my apartment and ate a big lunch so I didn’t have to eat a lot when I arrived into town (that went out the window, but we’ll get there). I then did four transfers to get to where I needed to be, which was absolutely insane.

The hotel checkin was a kiosk, as this was an unmanned hotel, and I chugged the waters they provided before rotting in bed for a bit and doing some email admin. I then randomly changed my initial plan, which was to go to Songdo Central Park, as when I was walking up the hill to my hotel I noticed that I was in an Arab neighborhood.

My Fulbright research, and the reason why I’m in Korea, is to study Middle Eastern and Central/South Asian migration to the area, so I went out and did some informal interviews. I wasn’t too hungry, but I stopped by ALQUDS and ordered a falafel wrap, hummus, and fattoush. And man that cured my ailments. The falafel and hummus were the standouts here—plus it was cheap.

From there I went to Incheon Chinatown and took some pictures, but didn’t spend a lot of time there. I wanted to go to Wolmido before sunset, so I grabbed tickets for the sea train (which I did no research about prior to this) for 12,000 won, then enjoyed the sunset on the boardwalk area.

I grabbed the last train before they shut down for the night, as I wanted to get my money’s worth, then I headed back to the hotel. I got a good rest that night and enjoyed the big shower in the hotel room, although the walls were quite thin and I could hear people in the hallway being loud.

Day Two: XMF Music Festival with LUCY, Younha, Novelbright, and ADO

Day two I woke up early and ready to go to the music festival. I knew I didn’t want to go right at opening because of the lines, so I ended up chilling around the hotel area and grabbing seolleongtang for breakfast. It was okay, but cheap, home-y, and filling.

Then I took the one hour public transport route to the Paradise City area. I got lost in Incheon Airport trying to find the shuttle to Paradise City, but it turns out it’s in the middle island away from the other departure gates on the first floor. From there it was a quick ride, I did a walk around the hotel/casino (which is really nice, I will admit), and then I checked into the festival with my ARC.

I didn’t end up getting the alcohol wristband because I knew I wasn’t going to drink, even though it was only 8,000 won for beer or highballs. The only thing I actually purchased on-site was a festival shirt for 42,000 won, as I didn’t want any of the artist merch. If the One Ok Rock shirt was cuter I would’ve gotten it, as my tour shirt from 2019 is one of my most worn possessions.

The first performance I wanted to see was ONEWE. They were good, but I felt like the following acts I enjoyed a lot more. I had no idea who NOVELBRIGHT were from Japan, and I fell in love with their music. Turns out they never come to the US, so my only chances to see them are in Asia. FTISLAND, as expected, was insane live.

At some point I got really hungry and couldn’t figure out the online ordering for the festival food, nor did anything look appealing to me. So I wandered into the food court of Paradise City and ended up eating a sandwich, ice cream, and a coffee from the coffeeshop.

After that the lineup got increasingly better. I absolutely adored Younha’s set, even though I had no idea who she was before this performance. I then got myself into prime position for LUCY’s set, which was also really good. I was happy, as I wanted to see them the most besides One Ok Rock.

I ended up leaving after ADO did two songs. She was a good performer, but this wasn’t my style of music. I think most people did come for her on the first night though, as the LUCY side was more empty because most people went over to the ADO side of the stage.

Day Three: Songdo Central Park, seeing DAY6, One Ok Rock, YB, and UVERworld.

I woke up early again on day three so I could have time to go to Songdo Central Park. This was one of my big items for Incheon travel, so I took a 25 minute bus ride from my hotel and grabbed an early lunch/breakfast at Kkua. I love KKua’s pho, which is Hanoi style, so I got one with extra meat because I knew I was going to get hungry later.

Once I was full I ran over to the park to take pictures with my camera. The beginning of the fall foliage was starting while I was there, so there were a ton of really nice shots. I didn’t have a ton of time here, so once I spent about thirty minutes taking pictures, I ended up popping into the written language museum. I liked that museum a lot!

I still didn’t have time to do everything I wanted, as I wanted to go back to the hotel, charge my phone for a bit, and then take a taxi to Paradise City. If I come back I want to explore the hanok village and go up to the free observatory in G-Tower.

I arrived just in time for the performance of Ae! group, which is a Japanese idol band. They play instruments and dance, although I think their dance songs were my least favorite. After some other sets following them I got really hungry so I popped back into Paradise City to use their nice restrooms and ate a burger in the food court. I wish I paid a little more for the fancy Italian restaurant, but it was full and I just needed to eat quickly.

Xdinary Heroes were a surprising standout from the earlier groups, as I was unfamiliar with them and didn’t realize they leaned more towards the metal and hard rock influences. The standout of the day though seriously was UVERworld.

I only knew their anime songs, but everything they performed that day was absolutely incredible live. It was high energy, and the live saxophone with the band was a pleasant surprise. From that point on I rested my legs, as the One Ok Rock crowd was getting really dense leading up to their performance, and I watched their set from the back to avoid the walls of death and mosh pits.

They were so good! I have no regrets coming all this way just to see them. I finished the night in the downpour with DAY6, who were also fantastic but lower energy. The crowd loved DAY6 and everyone was smiling/dancing, which was a vibe, but about 45 minutes into their set I decided to leave and grab a taxi home. I was really tired and drenched at this point.

I thought the XMF Festival was really well done in terms of the lineup. This was my first Korean festival besides Waterbomb and I think it was a bit better because it was attached to Paradise City, which had nice places to eat, a convenience store, bathrooms, etc. versus just having portable bathrooms. I liked how I could leave and come back as I wish, plus how I could easily watch performances from the area where you could sit on the steps + ground.

Day Four: Forest Outings and Commuting Back to Seoul

On day four I woke up and decided that I wasn’t going to really do anything else on this day, as I wanted to be back in Seoul by 2 PM. I packed up my stuff from the hotel and wandered up the street to a famous cafe called Forest Outings. It’s a three-floor cafe that’s a bit insane with its decor, but the prices do reflect the quality of the interiors.

Coming from an American perspective I thought that this was still cheap. I was really hungry and didn’t want to eat a ton when I got home, so what I ended up doing was picking up three pastries and getting an iced Americano. I grabbed my spot at one of the traditional style tables then dug in.

I really liked the salt bread, but the other two pastries were a little too sweet for me. The kaya croissant I couldn’t finish because of how sweet it was, but I did end up finishing the basil sausage bread. I was expecting something a bit more savory because of the sausage, but the bread itself was quite sweet. I did enjoy it though.

After that I grabbed my heavy backpack and took the bus to Line 1 in Incheon. From there, I transferred to the line 2 in Seoul after about an hour, and then collapsed into my bed for an hour before moving to unpack.

All in all, I really enjoyed this trip! It was a nice break from what I was experiencing in Seoul, which is very much urban and go-go-go all the time. I hope to do more side quests like this one in the near future!

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