Incheon is South Korea's third-largest city, with some two and a half million people, a port and an airport that is the country's main gateway, and it sits on a coast with some of the biggest tides in the world, up to nine metres between high and low. At low water the sea retreats for kilometres, leaving a grey, gleaming plain of mud where people walk out to dig for clams.
The city has a layered past. It opened to foreign trade in 1883, and the district around the old port, with its steep streets of colonial-era buildings, became Korea's first Chinatown, where jajangmyeon, the black-bean noodle dish now eaten across the country, is said to have originated. In 1950, General MacArthur's landing at Incheon turned the course of the Korean War, and a memorial in Jayu Park recalls it. Today the area around Songdo is a showpiece of new towers and tidy parks, and the Incheon Bridge, over twenty kilometres long, sweeps across the bay toward the airport.
The ride from here goes east to the opposite coast, across the Taebaek mountains to the East Sea, a day of about three hours of driving each way if you go by the expressway. The best approach is to take the Yeongdong Expressway east, leave early to beat the traffic, and then follow the coastal road south or north with the ocean on your side. The coast road is open, with curves along the headlands, pine forests, white sand and clear water, and in summer it is crowded, while in spring and autumn it is calm.
Fuel is everywhere in Incheon, and on the expressways every rest area has a station, with good food, from noodle soups to fried chicken. Korea drives on the right, tolls are paid with a card, and speed cameras are common. The main hazards are heavy traffic around the capital region on weekends and fog in the mountains in the early morning. Go early.