Jihacheol

It turned rather suddenly from summer to autumn this week. When we arrived it was still hot, muggy and in the 80s. Then one day the weather just flipped, and since then it's been drizzly and cool, with highs in the upper 60s and low 70s. Erma and I keep expecting the heat to come back -- in Seattle, the transition between seasons is hesitant and full of reversals -- but it looks like fall is here to stay.

Enough about the weather ....

Seoul has a fantastic subway system. When Erma last lived here, it was a simple relatively thing of four lines. Now it's a sprawling octopus with eight main lines, a ninth under construction, and a number of inter-connected commuter train lines. It probably should be considered in the same league as some of the great metropolitan subway systems like those of Tokyo, London, and New York. While some of the cars on the older lines are showing their age, the cars and stations on the new lines are beautiful. And most of the older stations seem to have been renovated recently.

Here's a map of the system, to give you an idea of its scope:


We get on the subway at Shinchon, about a 10-minute walk from our apartment. From there it's easy to get just about anywhere. The trains run at frequent intervals, even on weekends and holidays, and you barely lose any time when transferring from one line to another.

One of our first trips on the subway was to Homever, one of the large Korean discount department store chains (think Target), to buy some necessities for the apartment. Interestingly, the Homever is located inside the World Cup soccer stadium. (The World Cup was jointly hosted by Korea and Japan in 2002.) This gives it a rather odd shape, elongated and curved, as it follows the donut-ring circumference of the building.

The subway station at the World Cup soccer stadium seemed brand new. It was completed in late 2000, and I suspect that one reason that the line and its stations were built so nicely was in anticipation of the crowds of foreign soccer fans that would soon be pouring through it.

(It seems, sometimes, that countries like China and Korea make infrastructure improvements not for the sake of their own people, but out of fear of shaming themselves before Westerners. That's the attitude that was behind the celebrated ban of dog-meat sales before the 1988 Olympics here, and that is now behind the campaign against public spitting underway in Beijing in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics. Whatever the motivation, though, you can't quibble with the results.)

Before we headed up to Homever, I needed to pee. I knew the bathrooms in the department store would be fine, but I thought it would be a good idea to try out the subway bathrooms. Knowing how user-friendly they are could prove useful in a future emergency situation.

Well, the bathroom at the World Cup Stadium metro station was so nice that after I used it, I waited until everyone else had left, pulled out my camera, and took a few pictures. You'd never find a public bathroom this nice in the US.

Here is the entrance to the bathroom:


And here's the gleaming urinal area of the men's room:

I think the lone urinal on the far wall is for handicapped and/or children. About half the stalls had toilets, and half were squat toilets. (If you don't know what squat toilets are like, you can see a description and pictures here.)

We did finally make it out of the bathrooms and up to Homever. We were pretty surprised to find a very large contingent of riot police, complete with riot buses and riot shields and riot helmets and riot sticks, lolling around outside the entrance to Homever. They didn't appear to be there to buy inexpensive household goods, but on the other hand they didn't appear to be there to stop a riot, either. Mostly the young men were sitting around on benches trying not to fall asleep.

I wanted to, but didn't dare, take a picture of them. In this picture you can see one of their buses in the background, and if you look carefully at the larger picture you should be able to see the protective metal mesh on the windows.


There are a number of other great things about the subway besides the bathrooms and the fast and efficient transportation. For one thing, the signage is fantastic. Not only are there clear route maps at all the stations and on all the trains, but in every station there is a schematic three-dimensional diagram of the station (some of them are quite big and complicated, with over a dozen exits) and a little neighborhood map that shows places of interest in the immediate vicinity of the station. This is the one in the World Cup Stadium station:

If you take a close look, you'll notice that each place of interest appears to be labeled in three languages: Korean, English, and Chinese. In fact, this is a false impression. The three languages are actually Korean, English, and Korean again. I'll explain more about this in a future post.

Another great thing is that in many of the newer stations, there are glass walls separating the platform from the track, so that it is impossible for waiting commuters to fall in front of a train. The glass walls have doors in them, and the train stops at a precise location so that its doors line up with those in the wall. We saw these glass walls on the Singapore subway when we were there in 2000, and they were being retro-actively installed in many of the Hong Kong stations soon after that.

Some of the older stations in Seoul are also getting the retrofit treatment. This is the Shicheong (City Hall) station. You can still see some of the protective tape at the bottom of the newly installed doors.


But probably the best thing about the subway system is the great T-Money card, very similar to the Hong Kong Octopus Card that Erma and I came to know and love six years ago. Like the Octopus, the T-Money card is a rechargeable transit card that can communicate with other devices over short distances. This means that you don't have to slide or touch it to card readers -- you can just wave it nearby. If it's in your wallet or purse, you needn't bother taking it out, you can just hold the whole wallet or purse over the reader. And, like the Octopus, the card is turning into a general form of electronic money, usable at a number of retail outlets. Here's Erma using her card to get to the subway platform at the Shinchon station:


The reader, which controls the gate, lets her know that 900 won (about $1) is being charged from the card (that's discounted off the regular fare of 1000 won), and that a balance of 3300 won remains. (Depending on how far you travel, you may be charged a few hundred additional won when you exit.)

Many of the larger subway stations have small shops in them. When we went to the baseball game, the station by the ballpark had a baseball paraphernalia shop in it. Here's a picture of the window display:


Perhaps this is where all the Koreans are buying their MLB baseball caps!

But wait ... something's wrong. Take a look at that male mannequin. He's wearing a Red Sox jersey and Yankee pinstripe pants?!?? Shows what Koreans know about American baseball.

Erma and I have been keeping an informal and unscientific tally of baseball caps seen around Seoul. Red Sox and Yankees caps are definitely most popular, with Yankees caps seeming to hold a slight edge. Next most popular are the Chicago White Sox.

I still don't know if people are choosing these hats randomly, according to fashion or aesthetics, or based on knowledge of the teams.

I could go on with even more detailed descriptions of the subway, but if that's the kind of thing that really interests you, you'll just have to come over and ride it yourself.