On January 8, Korail opened ticket sales for the 2019 Lunar New Year holiday.
For Lee Hyun-song, 26, from Busan, the morning of January 8 was a nightmare. "My whole family woke up at 6am to get a train ticket for me for the Lunar New Year holiday, but no one could book a ticket" - Lee said.
When train tickets sold out in just a few seconds during the holiday, Lee said he had made a plan to spend the Lunar New Year to ensure successful bookings. She finds train schedules that match her plans, records a piece of paper and practices to type a keyboard faster. She even went to the PC room to have a high-speed internet connection to book tickets.
"I pressed the "booking" button at 7:00 a.m., but there were about 20,000 people on the website ready to book like me. I have been in Seoul for 7 years but every time I book a train ticket for Tet, it always makes me nervous" - she said.
Lee is one of many Koreans participating in the race to book train tickets for Tet. The keyword "Korail" took the lead in the search on Naver on the morning of January 8, while the keyword "Lunar New Year 2019 train journey" also appeared on the search bar.
According to the Korea Herald, Korail allocates 70% of holiday train tickets for online sales, but this number is often sold out immediately. On January 8, the number of people logging into the website to book tickets for the holiday increased to 150,000, according to Korail. The fierceness of the race to book train tickets for Tet is compared by many people to the online registration of university students.
In addition to the race to book tickets online, on the morning of January 8, it is also easy to recognize those who are trying to book the remaining 30% of train tickets sold at stations and travel agencies at Seoul Station.
"My children and I tried to buy tickets online this morning but we were all left empty-handed. I couldn't buy tickets at the time I wanted, but luckily I bought 4 tickets to Deagu at the box office," 56-year-old businessman Lee Nott-jin told Korea Herald at Seoul terminal.
According to this newspaper, in front of the ticket office at the scattered station there are backpacks and card boxes from 10am on January 8 to mark the place for those who want to buy tickets on the morning of January 9.
"My son will try to buy tickets online tomorrow morning at home, but I will spend the whole night at the station lining up when my son cannot buy tickets" - Mr. Park Jin-soo, 55 years old, wants to buy tickets to Yeongju, North Gyeongsang province shared.
Mr. Park said that he has been lining up to buy tickets for each holiday for the past 10 years. He prepared 6 warm-up hot airbags and a thick coat, gloves and warm-up pants to cope with the cold at the station.
For those lining up to buy tickets, Seoul station staff provided them with coffee, warm water and kept the station open all night.
