The Subway

I've been pretty much all over the city of Seoul this week, doing various things. My primary method of travel is the subway, although I did spend about two hours on a single bus ride from the southwestern part of the city to the northeastern part where I live... That was an adventure ;)

I talk a lot in conversations with people back in the States about how crowded the subway is and what it looks like and such, but I thought I'd show a few pictures. I didn't actually take any of these pictures, they are all from a google search... But they give you a pretty good idea of what goes on in Seoul!

This is an empty subway train. Doesn't it look nice? Padded seats that are heated in the winter, clean and shiny, plenty of space between the seats...

Sometimes the subway looks like this. There are a lot of people, but it certainly isn't anything unreasonable. The subway isn't so terrible when it is like this. 

Unfortunately, it can also get like this. 

And this. This is what it is like every morning when I go to work, every night when I come home, almost anytime I go anywhere on the weekends and practically all the time when I am closer to downtown. There are times when it is literally like a tide of people getting on and off. I couldn't stop moving with the flow if I wanted to. Sometimes, if there are enough people getting off, I just have to get off with them even if it isn't my stop, then fight my way on the train again. 

This is certainly an extreme example of what the traffic can look like in the area where you get on and off trains, but I've definitely seen it like this before. Sometimes people will be so packed in that you can't really move until another train comes and frees up some space temporarily. I try to avoid the stations that are notorious for that, either through poor design or ridiculous traffic flows. 

The subway does do a very good job of being easy to navigate. The announcements about the upcoming stop are in Korean first, then in English. At some of the larger stations, they also make announcements in Chinese and Japanese. When you have to transfer, there are clear signs marking the way in English and Korea with station names in Chinese characters. 

There are also signs above the door at every single station that tell you what the previous, current and upcoming stops are. This is quite helpful, especially when I'm someplace that I'm not terribly familiar with. 

This is a shot of my own little subway station. I climb these stairs pretty much every day. I can tell that this picture was taken on a weekend. I didn't go look at a calendar, but look at all of the Koreans in their hiking gear. My station is named after the mountain that is very nearby, so it is quite popular on weekends. I always feel a little strange on Sundays as I walk through all of the hikers wearing dress clothes and lugging a cello around ;)

The Seoul subway system is HUGE. In 2009, there were just over 2 billion passengers. There are about 7 million people who ride the subway every single day. It should be noted that this map isn't really an accurate map. In general, there are about 2-3 minutes in between each station. The trains come anywhere from every 2 minutes to every 25 minutes, depending on the line you are on and the time of day/day of the week. It costs about $0.80 to ride for about 10ish stops. The most you can be charged for a subway trip is $2.20. To ride from one end to the other can take anywhere from an hour and a half to two and a half hours. 

As the last picture in this very picture-filled post, here are some of the places that I go regularly in Seoul. 

1. Where I live

2. Where I work

3. My church

4. Where my small group meets

5. Where I go each week for discipleship meetings with Becky

6. These are the places I have to go to find a store that is similar to a Wal Mart or Target instead of a small market.

7. This is where I go each week for a language exchange and is a good meeting place as well.

8. This is the foreigners section of Seoul. I go here whenever I need to buy spices or other Western style food or go shopping for any clothes.