Double-decker tour of downtown Seoul

By Yang Sung-jin
Publisher:The Korea Herald - Publication Date: 28-05-2008

The Voalgers, a German couple who flew in from Frankfurt to visit their son, had already walked along the recently restored Cheonggye Stream the previous day, and wanted to get a better glimpse of downtown Seoul. Their choice of transportation: a city tour bus.

The couple bought a one-day pass for the red double-decker bus, a rarity not only in Seoul but also in the entire country. After adjusting the multilingual voice guide system, the Voalgers settled into the front seats on the upper deck and set their eyes forward, taking in the view as the bus rolled from the starting point in front of Donghwa duty free shop in Gwanghwamun.

The Palace-Chyeonggye course, one of four tour itineraries run by Honey Moon Travel and supported by the Seoul City Government, covered an assortment of old places, modern buildings, the theater district, and museums for one and a half hours.

"When we were down in Busan, my son's girlfriend drove us around, but in Seoul we don't have any other guide, so we have taken this bus," Voalger said. Their son works at a ship parts maker in Busan.

The double-decker's voice system plays a virtual guide, offering a brief introduction of key spots in English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. The bus drives past key attractions such as Cheonggye Plaza, the Seoul Folk Flea Market, Changgyeong Palace, Insadong and the Seoul Museum of History.

Kim Cheol-ho, director of Honey Moon Travel, said the city tour service attracted about 80,000 customers last year, about 40 percent of whom were foreign travelers. "Beginning from this month, we have introduced a new route for the double-decker buses to focus on the places and other key spots north of the Han River," Kim said. "But other courses still bring our customers across the river to COEX."

In addition to the Palace-Cheonggye line, the Seoul tour bus system has three other courses: Downtown, the Convention-Namsan and Night Tour. Since the service covers almost all key attractions throughout Seoul, both foreign and local travelers like the bus tour, Kim said.

But the key idea behind the tour is the convenient hop-on-hop-off system that allows people to leave the bus, explore places of interest and continue the tour on a later bus.

Of course, there are many affordable tour packages offered by travel agencies, but some people want a loose schedule so they can change easily and walk around at their own pace before hopping on the bus again to move to another attraction. That is why famous metropolitans such as New York, Tokyo, Paris, London and Hong Kong provide city tour bus services to tourists.

But the Seoul tour bus system has yet to improve its services to catch up with other cities. For one, the double-decker bus had a couple of small flat screen TVs, which were never turned on. Due to the lack of a guide, the Voalgers had some difficulty identifying where they were.

Yet the Voalgers rightly understood that the ride was just a tool for getting to key locations. When they were getting off at the Seoul Folk Flea Market, they seemed genuinely excited about what they were about to explore.

The double-decker buses operate from 9am and set out at one-hour intervals from Gwanghwamun. At 7:30 p.m. and 8:00pm, the buses offer a night tour near the Han River. The ticket for a one-day pass is 12,000 won (US$11.50) and a single-ride pass is 7,000 won. For further information, call (02) 777-6090 or visit.

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