Thursday, September 02, 2010

Wolfhound Pub and the Seoul Metropolitan Subway

On Sunday, on the train to Itaewon, I met a girl from New York City named Adrienne. It was really great to meet someone with whom I could converse. Once we arrived at Itaewon, she helped me find the Wolfhound, an Irish pub that is apparently a very popular foreigner hangout. Let me tell you, fish and chips and a pint of Guinness? I was in Irish heaven...

I should take this time to tell you a little bit about the Seoul Metropolitan Subway. If you're like me, and the only experience you've had with city train transit is in cities like Edmonton, the Seoul Subway is quite a shock. In a city as densely populated as Seoul, an efficient rail system is key, and it is really amazing how well the subway here works. There are nine different lines in the system, with a total of 291 separate subway stations. You can quite literally get to almost any part of Seoul using the subway system. On top of that, the trains and stations are, without exception, nearly immaculately clean. The trains are very modern and obviously well-maintained.  To give you an idea of the scope of the entire system, here is the map of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway:



To me, it looks as though someone has dropped a bowl of cooked spaghetti on the city.  Crazy!

9 comments:

Phil said...

Yeah well when the supervolcano under Korea starts to awaken, those subway tunnels are gonna be underground rivers of lava. You think they'll be cool then? Huh? Do you?

Dan Gunther said...

Actually, yeah, that'd be pretty sweet!

Unknown said...

What about the girl, Dan?

Elwood said...

Hahaha! That look like my 'bets movies' map!

http://i.imgur.com/CYvlA.jpg

Elwood said...

Elwood no spell grood.

Dan Gunther said...

Wow... so much so that it almost looks intentional...

Dan Gunther said...

Dee: She's pretty cool, and my first post-Korean arrival Facebook add!

Dan Gunther said...

And Elwood, by intentional, I meant the similarity between the maps, not your misspelling!

Miramanee said...

That is so crazy! I'd be lost for sure.