Ulsan (Tongdosa) KTX Station

Ulsan, located about 55 kilometers north of Busan Station, is one of Korea's leading industrial cities, with a developed automobile industry (Hyundai Motors, Korea's largest automobile manufacturer) as well as shipyards and heavy chemical industries, including petrochemicals.

Although it is now an industrial city lined with chimneys, whaling has been a popular activity since prehistoric times, as evidenced by the many whales carved into the Ulsan Rock Carvings (National Treasure No. 285). Jangsaengpo, which once flourished as a whaling base, is home to a whale museum and was once a whaling town where a whale festival is held.

Ulsan has transformed from a whaling town into an industrial city. On November 2010, 11, the second stage of the KTX (Korean Gyeongbu Express Line) linking Busan and Dongdaegu opened, making access from Seoul and Busan much easier for businessmen who frequently travel to Ulsan and tourists who come to enjoy Ulsan's natural scenery.

KTX trains from Busan to Seoul via Ulsan currently run every 10 to 20 minutes. The newly opened Busan-Dongdaegu KTX Phase 2 section mostly goes through tunnels, but it takes 19 minutes to Ulsan Station and 27 minutes to Singyeongju Station, so I was surprised at how fast it was.

Although Ulsan Station is about 15km away from the center of Ulsan, city and intercity buses and limousine buses are waiting at the station according to the KTX arrival time, so you can transfer from the train to a bus and head straight to the center of Ulsan. Why not take advantage of this convenient access to the KTX and visit an industrial or whaling city?