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I climbed aboard Korea's 'love train' to find a partner — here’s what happened

Published: 17 Feb. 2025, 17:52 Updated: 17 Feb. 2025, 19:00

YOON SO-YEON
[email protected]

Participants of the two-day "Solo Train in Jeongseon" match-making program pose for photos wearing the official hooded shirt provided by the Jeongseon County government on Feb. 14 inside the Romyzian Garden in Jeongseon County, Gangwon. [KORAIL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT]

This story is written in a rare first-person perspective to highlight a highly personal and subjective tone based on the reporter’s experience.

JEONGSEON, Gangwon — Love was aboard the train this Valentine's Day — not for me, but for at least five out of the eight pairs of men and women who embarked on a two-day journey arranged by Korail Tourism Development to find their own valentine in Gangwon's peaceful Jeongseon County.

The tourism subsidiary of Korea's largest train operator organized a two-day matchmaking event with eight pairs of men and women between their late 20s and early 30s who spent two whole days participating in a variety of events designed to help them fall in love within a 48-hour window.

The event was co-hosted by the Jeongseon County government to help boost the falling marriage and birth rates in Korea, and to promote major tourist spots in the county.

The ″Solo Train in Jeongseon″ program poster [KORAIL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT]

This reporter, who also took part as a willing participant, unfortunately failed to find love — but instead had an unexpectedly pleasant tour around the region.

The long (and sad) story short: The power of a well-designed program with the sole purpose of helping — or even forcing, so to say — people to fall in love with each other only works when the participants have the personal charms that would have worked even outside of the particular program.

But to provide some background to this, and also to excuse myself, I would like to emphasize that the failure was not due to my lack of effort or a fault in the program. If that were the case, there wouldn't have been five happy couples going out to drink together when the program ended on Saturday.

The welcome bag with this reporter's nickname tag, Jennie [YOON SO-YEON]

The welcome bag containing a bottle of water, a reusable tumbler, a bag of snacks, a folder and a hoodie T-shirt [YOON SO-YEON]

Waiting in anticipation

The trip began at Seoul Station in central Seoul when I shyly approached the organizers at a designated spot inside the station.

“Hi, I’m Jennie,” I said, referring to myself with the nickname that I was given in prior communications.

Each participant had been given a nickname of a Korean celebrity the night before and was repeatedly told not to use one's real name during the program at all. My name was Jennie, and other participants had names like Karina, Winter, IU, Jang Won-young, Sullyoon, Yuna, Oh Hae-won, Byeon Woo-seok, Cha Eun-woo, V, Lee Jong-seok, Choo Young-woo, Jang Sung-kyu, Sean and Paik Jong-won.

I was given a welcome bag filled with snacks, a reusable tumbler, a pink hooded shirt, a name tag with my nickname and — the most essential of all — a folder that held my own profile card, my itinerary and an empty sheet that would eventually be filled with the information of the eight men I would be meeting later in the day.

The three sheets of paper containing (from left) the itinerary, each participant's profile and a memo to be filled with other people's information [YOON SO-YEON]

Inside the KTX train ride to Odaesan Station, Gangwon, the female participants were seated next to each other and eased into the process. Right next to me was Karina: a 30-year-old architect from Nowon District, northern Seoul, who had come along with her friend, Winter, a 30-year-old worker at a public institute.

It had been six months since Karina had dated anyone. For me, the oldest of the eight women and born in 1993, it was a whole year. The other women were born between 1994 and 1997 — something that had damaged my competitive spirit right from the beginning due to the large tendency for Korean men to look for younger women.

The timetable was neatly packed with the best that Jeongseon had to offer. We would have lunch at a local traditional Korean restaurant, ride the Mount Gariwang cable car, go to the Romyzian Garden, have one-on-one sessions for 70 minutes, walk around the garden, have dinner, go for more one-on-one sessions and then venture out for a night stroll. The next day included a cooking class, a “pet rock” painting session and a railbike ride along the river.

The random draw for the bus seats, which took place at the Odaesan train station [YOON SO-YEON]

Luck and looks

From the moment we arrived in Jeongseon to the moment we got on the train back to Seoul the next day, every minute was dedicated to mixing and matching everyone so that they could spend time together, even if just for a moment, to figure out who would be the best fit for each participant.

Except for the first two events and the very first bus ride to the restaurant, a team of either sex was constantly required to publicly choose who they wanted to pair up with by saying embarrassing phrases like these in front of everyone: “Hey Yuna, I want to go and see the snow with you. Will you join me?”

The bus with a heart-shaped sign that reads, "Solo Train in Jeongseon" [YOON SO-YEON]

For the first bus ride, we sat in pairs after a random draw. My bus partner was Paik Jong-won, a 35-year-old man working at a public finance institute in central Seoul. Spoiler alert: This is the villain of my story, but we’ll get to that later.

Outside the first stop, a traditional Korean restaurant, we were given a glimpse into how the two days would turn out. The 31-year-old Jang Sung-kyu had won a quiz game inside the bus and was given what was called a “Super Calling Chance,” meaning that he could, or had to, choose a woman to share lunch with in private, away from the rest of the gang.

“Yuna, do you want to eat a delicious lunch with me?” he said into the microphone in the street outside the restaurant, which luckily had no pedestrians other than our group. Another couple was also matched in the same way and got their own private lunch date.

Traditional Korean restaurant Ongi Bapsang, the first meal of the program on Feb. 14 [KORAIL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT]

An important note: At this stage, we had only been talking to our bus partners and hadn't really met the others yet. So, the decisions were made entirely based on each participant’s looks.

The rest of the 12 people were seated in groups of three men and three women. During lunch, each contestant — which was what we seemed more like now than mere participants — introduced themselves with details such as their age, occupation and hobbies, as well as their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) — a popular personality test in Korea for being able give someone a rough gist of their character. Much of the following conversation covered the typical blind date material.

Afterward, it was a continuous streak of random draws and picking partners, except for a 70-minute session before dinner where everyone got a chance to talk to someone of the opposite sex other than their bus partner, whom they'd already spent hours with, for 10 minutes each.

The one-on-one talk session on Feb. 14 where participants get 10 minutes to talk to each other [KORAIL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT]

'Why don’t you want kids?'

One very enlightening fact was that although 10 minutes is a very short amount of time to get to know someone in real life, it’s more than enough when both parties are eager to assess whether the other person is marriage material or not.

It was at this moment when I quickly realized that my chances of making it onto anyone’s list of priorities could be tarnished by one line on my profile card. The line read: I would like to get married but I prefer not to have kids.

I did not write this sentence myself. It was one of the three options that were given to me when we had to fill out our profile cards. The options were: I don’t want to get married right away, I would like to get married to the right person and — my personal pick — I would like to get married but I prefer not to have kids.

It turns out I was the only one out of the 16 people who had chosen that option.

The reporter waiting for a male counterpart to begin the 10-minute one-on-one conversation on Feb. 14 [YOON SO-YEON]

I would safely say that out of the seven men I spoke to during the series of 10-minute one-on-ones, almost every single one asked me, “Why don’t you want kids?” and then explained to me how much they wanted them. I would also assume that the fact I was studying for my master’s degree, despite having one of the most demanding occupations for a young woman, didn’t help either.

Not to seem petty, but I also unfortunately failed to find what I was looking for in a man: someone who also has ambitions in their life and spends their free time studying something outside of work, someone who would respect my lifestyle and someone who would be willing to waiver the decision to have kids.

When the one-on-one rotation process was over at 5 p.m., I realized that I would go home empty-handed. So, I changed my goal from finding love to just enjoying the tour.

Couples on a treasure hunt inside the Romyzian Garden premises on Feb. 14 [YOON SO-YEON]

The Romyzian Garden at night with participants dining at the barbecue place on Feb. 14 [KORAIL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT]

Jennie’s ordeal

By the time we'd set out on a treasure hunt around the Romyzian Garden at 5:30 p.m., everyone seemed to have found their match. Most of the couples actually started out together from the very beginning inside the bus, which meant that I was also stuck with my bus partner, Paik Jong-won.

Here, I would like to point out that he wasn’t a bad person. We just didn't make pleasant conversation.

I had actually sensed an omen from the very first moment I saw him. After he sat down on the bus and we said hi, I asked him what his nickname was and he replied “Paik Jong-won,” and then remained silent for minutes. He had managed not to ask me a single question until the host started a game inside the bus, after which we were told to exchange profile cards and ask each other questions.

Of the few meaningful exchanges we had inside the bus, one of his hopes had me quite shocked. He was studying English to get an MBA in the United States, so he was looking for “someone who would quit their job and come along to the United States” with him.

Participants taking pictures around Mount Gariwang as part of the program [KORAIL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT]

The Romyzian Garden on Feb. 15 [KORAIL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT]

As I struggled to continuously try to find common ground for communication, he succeeded in shooting my attempts down either with other shocking utterances or negative answers without giving me any follow-up questions. I had lost all the fight in me at the treasure hunt, so I strolled around and enjoyed the snow-covered garden positioned peacefully against the mountainous landscape.

After the dinner, where partners were matched up by making the men pick out belongings owned by the women, I was the last one to choose which man I would like to talk more with. I was left with Paik, and when his first greeting was “I’m sorry you’re here,” I lost all patience and asked if he was having a bad day.

“I actually went on a blind date yesterday and I think we really hit it off. That was all I was thinking about, and I didn’t realize that showed. I’m sorry if I’m wasting your time,” he said.

I congratulated him on finding his match and also told him he should work on his social skills nonetheless. And we were all sent off for a night stroll in the garden with none of the other participants around. I, however, told Paik we didn’t need to “waste” any more time, and we quickly returned to our own dorms.

The cooking class that took place on Feb. 15 [KORAIL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT]

The "pet rocks" painted by six participants on Feb. 15 offer a glimpse into the general mood among the unmatched participants. This reporter's rock is second from the left. [YOON SO-YEON]

Farewell Jeongseon

The next day, I luckily succeeded in avoiding Paik Jong-won. I had breakfast with Sean, who wanted to get married soon and make grandchildren for his parents, and lunch with V, who was surprisingly gentle but had his heart set on a girl called IU.

Five couples were finally put together and the rest of us, a total of six, painted “pet rocks” by ourselves and rode on railbikes in teams of three, while the couples painted each other’s rocks and rode the railbikes by themselves.

The five couples who got matched, going on a railbike ride by themselves [YOON SO-YEON]

The railbike ride with two fellow female participants who did not get matched with anyone on Feb. 15 [YOON SO-YEON]

The brief sense of bitterness sweeping through my body was quite literally blown away by the cold wind that hit my face as I pedaled with the others on the railbike. The activity was surprisingly strenuous, but it was also surprisingly healing to ride through the quiet countryside along the picturesque winter Gangwon valley. The Jeongseon Railbike was the first of its kind to be made in Korea and boasts a 7.2-kilometer (4.47-mile) long track. It is known as one of the main tourist attractions in Jeongseon County.

When we got on the train back to Seoul at 5:06 p.m., people were talking about getting a drink nearby Seoul Station. I politely refused and said I had plans to meet up with a friend afterward. This was in fact true, but quite frankly, I wouldn’t have wanted to be the miserable third, or 15th, wheel of a happy gang of newly matched couples anyway.

The first part of this article written on paper on the train back to Seoul on Feb. 15 [YOON SO-YEON]

Instead, I used the backs of the three sheets of paper I was given at the very beginning of the program, which became the evidence of my failed attempt, and started writing this story by hand inside the train. I had left my laptop at home as proof of my excitement and anticipation of love — something I seldom do because I’m always ready for any breaking story that may come my way.

Although I failed to find love, I took the opportunity to enjoy the guided tour and to fully appreciate the private night at the Romyzian Garden that was rented out just for our group. And for anyone who wants to get married and have kids, I would recommend this program 100 percent.

BY YOON SO-YEON [[email protected]]