Public transport in Korea

In a nutshell, I think the public transport is pretty amazing. Compared to transport in England and America, for me it wins, no questions asked. Although I appreciate that if you’re elderly, best take a car…

T-money charms

Ok starting off with the subways in the major cities like Seoul, Daejeon and Busan. They’re all really efficient clean and very easy to navigate. They’re miles better than anything I’ve seen in London, America or France. Price wise, the Korean subways are dirt cheap! To get into the subway you can either buy a card for a single journey, a T-money card which you can top up, (much like an Oyster card in London) or you can get little cute charms (which I use) also act as T-money cards, and you can attach them to your phone or keys or whatever so you don’t lose them. To get into the subway you’ll scan your card or charm and it’ll cost you something like £1 each time, and when you leave it won’t charge you again by the distance you’ve travelled. It will simply log that you are now out of the subway. That’s right, you can go any distance and be charged the same flat rate. I’ve also been told that if you’re journey takes more than an hour then you get the transport for free, but I haven’t tried it.

Scanning the T-money charm

Moving onto the navigation, the Korean subways are all in both English and Korean, and the electronic boards are all in several languages. They usually rotate between Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese (I can’t tell if it’s Mandarin or Cantonese). So when I’m in a rush, that helps massively, but when I’m not, I try and take the time to read the Korean. Also, when the subway map is far away on the subway train and I can‘t get near, the English is usually too small for me to read so I have to read the Korean names of the stops. Announcements in the subway are also done in English and Korean. In terms of the layout, It’s all logical and easy to find your way round. There are signs everywhere to tell you where to change tracks, and which subway exit takes you to which well known location.

Aesthetically…the subway is naturally a lot more modern than anything in London or France, but it also actually kept clean. Everything is a shade of white or chrome with adverts, shops and subway maps adding a splash of colour. One nice auditory feature that the subway has is that when your train is about to arrive at your platform, a little stereotypically Asian chime will play out of the speakers, and is followed by an announcement telling you where the train is going, and what the next stop is, just incase you missed the signs everywhere which tell you which way the train is going and what the next stop is.

For convenience as well, there are a lot of shops in the Subway, In Seoul there are many underground malls that I’ve just stumbled into when not paying attention. Although, these are usually selling stuff that old women would buy. And Finally, there is copious amounts of free wifi, as to be expected with Korea.

Moving onto Inter city transport with coaches. I haven’t had the pleasure of travelling by train yet in Korea, and it may not happen while I’m here, but I can at least tell you about the Coach system. Much like the Korean subway, with the large inter city coach stations, there is information everywhere in several languages, and all the large ones that I’ve been to are attached to an extensive shopping mall. In the same way that you pay a single flat rate on the subway, you do the same for an intercity coach. However for these you must go and buy a ticket. These buses are usually express anyway, but between some cities there is maybe one or two stops, and the price doesn’t change weather you get off at those or the final destination. Price wise I’d pay maybe £5-£7 each way depending on which cities I’m travelling to and from. Again, dirt cheap.

But these coaches aren’t like your national express coaches, or Grayhound  or Trailways. Oh no, the Koreans like to travel with comfort. Firstly everyone is assigned a seat number, and then the seats are spaced enough so have more than enough leg room. Your seat can recline with a leg rest and your seats are usually heated when it’s cold. Coach etiquette is pretty much, be quiet and keep yourself to yourself. And people do, because most people sleep on these coaches, even if it’s the middle of the day. And kids on these coaches don’t scream and cry either, they just sleep too. The odd person might have a phone call but they’ll cut it short and call back later. And again, these coaches are kept immaculate. There is usually a TV too which is connected to wifi and plays the news (no volume with subtitles in Korean) where I get my weekly update on what's happening in the world.

Moving onto local and internal city public transport.
From where I live (the middle of nowhere) and regular city public transport, there is very little difference. It’s regular, even where I live, and it’s almost never late. Like with coaches and the subway when you get on you pay a flat rate no matter weather you’re going just one stop or all the way to the terminal, and it usually costs between £1 and £1.25. The main difference however is the difference in how much English is available. In the city bus terminals, there is usually English signs, where I live, there isn't. So If I came to Korea before learning Hangeul, I'd find it mighty hard getting from A to B when looking at this...

You might not be able to see bit it's all Korean apart from the word "Timetable"

Depending on which bus you get, usually the busses are again really comfortable and you have more than enough leg space. With these buses however, you can either pay in cash, or you can use the same T-money card that you use for the subway, with the bus. Very handy. ^^. With city busses, there is also an announcement in both Korean and English to tell you which stop you are at, but in the more rural areas, like where I live, these are absent so you just need to know your stop. I must say though, these bus drivers mean business when they drive. As soon as you get on the bus and you’ve paid, they don’t wait for you to sit down, that food goes straight down on the accelerator, so you need to find a seat fast! Many a time I’ve almost lost my footing making my way down the bus and before now, I’ve seen a poor old woman struggling with her bags, literally be thrown off her feet half way down the bus. Lucally for her, another maybe middle aged woman grabbed her and caught her and gave her her seat. It’s a good thing too because that could have gotten ugly.

But yeah that pretty much covers public transport from my experience so far. ^^
 

Crime in Korea

So… crime in Korea… wait what crime? I think it’s pretty safe to say that South Korea, in my experience (so far) has made me feel safer and more comfortable than even in my home town or where I went to university.

I’m pretty sure that whenever I go back to the western world, I’m going to suffer some reverse culture shock when it comes to crime and safety. In Korea no matter what time of day or night it is, I can freely go skipping in a park with my cell phone in hand, wallet out in the other hand, and I never feel threatened or concerned for my safety. I never feel like I’m going to run into a gang of Korean high school boys in hoodies who are all like: “what are you doing in this part of the park, this is my park”. In England, I have to think twice about going to the corner shop because there might be a gang stood outside it equipped with knuckle dusters and bikes for a quick escape. Honestly, I have never felt that way or ever seen anything like it while I’ve been in Korea. Even when Im alone at night and I see someone with a hood up walking towards me. There just isn’t that chav stigma attached to hoodies here.

In Korea a lot of shops even have their products outside of the store, including alcohol, and no one ever steals it. Skooters of fast food delivery guys leave their scooters by the road, still running with the keys in. People leave their cars running with the kids in if they have to do a quick errand in a bank or something. And guess what, no body takes it.

I’m not saying that there aren’t bad school kids or there aren’t gangs in Korea, because there are, they’re just not as prevalent or as public as they are in England. As I mentioned in my last blog, after kids finish school here, they’re expected to go to an after school, or a night school of some kind. They’re constantly in school, studying. So the bad kids in Korea are being bad by not studying, or by going to the park and secretly smoking with their friends. Before now I’ve stumbled upon such an example and they react as if: “omg we’ve been caught, run!” but then they realise I’m a foreigner and they carry on.

If you go out at 1 or 2 am in Korea you’ll see lots of couples in cafes snuggling up, or friends just having a chat, minding their own business, as should be. In England on a Friday or Saturday night, you don’t want to be on the street. Someone’s gonna stab you if you look at them funny, or some random drunkard will try and start a fight with you.

Tbh I do think that unfortunately things in Korea could change. My co-teacher and I were talking, today infact, and she was saying how much Korean kids have changed since she was in school. The things they do and don’t have the nerve to do. And with the west having a stronger and stronger influence in Korea these days, in another 10 years the streets might not be quite so safe…but still, I find it hard to imagine Korea ever being like an episode of Shameless.

In England, whenever you walk down the street you always have a certain element of cautiousness about you. You where is and isn’t safe to go at certain times and if you feel threatened by any particular obstacle, you always know an alternative route. Whenever you’re in public you make sure to keep your belongings close to you and don’t leave anything where someone could make a sly grab when you’re looking the other way. But I’ve completely lost that air of cautiousness while I’ve been here.

I’m pretty sure that this is a public advertisement for the Korean mafia to rob me, walking down the street with my phone in one hand wallet in the other. I sure wouldn’t be hard to find in a crowd here.

Random collection

So this post is basically just a brief over view of the small things that I keep meaning to talk about but don't really have enough to say to write a full blog about each one.


 School

This year's staff photo

 So I've been at my school now for 5/6 weeks now. I'm really starting to feel like this is my life now.

Between every class, there is a 10 minute break where, but because it is such a short time, the students don't go outside. this turns the classrooms into a play ground between classes, but I really don't mind. I quite enjoy it actually. It gives me a chance to talk to the students and get to know them better.

The school also does staff trips once a month on Wednesdays instead of our regular volleyball games. For our trip in March, we all went hiking in the hills just by our school and had a picnic. With hiking i felt much more in my element than in volleyball, and again, with hiking it is a chance for me to talk with the other teachers and practice my Korean on them.

 Last up on school is dinning. Lunch is split into two sittings for the older kids and the younger kids. I usually eat with the older kids, but still, on the staff table. Now, one thing that I've had to get used to is not knowing what I'm eating. because in school, I almost never know what I'm eating. I just eat it, it tastes good and then I'm done. The same is often true when eating out. I'll ask a native Korean what a particular thing is, they'll look at it, poke it, maybe smell it, or taste is and then say that either they don't know what it is either, or they don't know what the English word for it is. but I'm ok with it.













Home

So I haven't really talked much about where I live.

It's a tiny area. in terms of area it takes up it's the size of a hamlet, but because of the population in the high size flats, maybe you'd call it a village. there's something like 1,800-2,000 people living here. Anyway, there's a few shops, social places, a norebang obviously, a couple of restaurants and a chapel. Behind the apartments is the sea, to the left is forest and to the right is rice paddies. Something about this area reminds me of 1950s America. All the families know each other and really contribute to the community. A large number of the families only have the men working and the women doing something or other, and the children are free to go off and play in the forest or whatever until it's time for dinner and then the streets are dead by 6:30pm because all the families are either eating together, or the kids have gone to their hagwon (after school school/night school.)  There are no teenagers hanging around on street corners because all their spare time is taken up by studying.

Tide is out (I'm not sure that I'll ever get to see it in.) 

The chapel