Wooo

The Seoul subway system is an interesting creature. The times at which it stops running are strange and at times random. Tonight when I was returning to Ansan from a day trip into Seoul I was fortunate enough to encounter the unreliability of the subway.

Making my way to line 4 was fairly entertaining. I entered the subway station in Gangnam. It was pretty empty, an okay sign. I swiped my t-money card, passed the turn styles, and hustled my way to the platform entrance. At the bottom of the stairs was an impressive sea of people. This would be interesting....When the train arrived I shoved/shuffled my way to a door. An older man beside me looked to me and smiled. I responded with a reserved, "wooo". As we made it into the trains doorway, he and I began to push forward, shoving ourselves into the already packed train.

I'd like to take this time to apologise to the girl who was wearing high heels. Well...every girl seems to here. But the one whose toes I stepped on. Sorry!

Anyways, we got into the car, the doors closed, and the train began to move. 4 stops later at Sadang station I took my turn in shoving passed people to get through the doors. All good so far. I started to walk towards my transfer. At one point, an announcement came over the loud speakers and people began to run. Unsure of what was going on, I followed there pace and expedited my trip to the #4 platform. Upon arrival...I waited. Waited....waited.....then the train came. So far so good!

Aware of the long ride back to Ansan, I took out my headphones and listened to some music. Thirty minutes passed. Still good. Then, we hit the final station of the night. Not Oido...somewhere else. "This is the last stop of the night, please make sure you have all your belongings!". I stepped off the train and asked someone a simple question, "jungang, jungang?".

A man replied, "Where are you going?". Excellent, a bit of English!
"Jungang Yuk" I said.
"No train anymore." I smiled...said Taxi, he said yes. So..I just started walking for the exit. As I got closer, men in blue shirts were shouting stuff at the bottom of the stairs. "Ansan!" I picked out in one sentence. Guessing that they were cab drivers, I echoed back, "Ansan, Ansan!". A kind hand on my shoulder guided me to another stair case, which I took. It led me outside to where some taxis and other confused people stood around.
"Ansan!!! Ansan!!!" A man shouted.
"Ansan..Gojan" I replied.
A kind hand on my shoulder guided me inside his taxi. A short wait and 3 more passengers later, we were off.

Now...taxi drivers in Korea like to drive fast and they like to drive aggressively. But, after my first experience in a taxi on my first day here...this ride wasn't very hair raising. We all didn't wear seatbelts...as is the bizarre custom, if they are even available in the car. We also all sat quietly during the ride. Weaving in and out of traffic, barreling along at a respectable speed, it was actually quite relaxing. I was only mildly worried when our driver passed a car in a tunnel. But even then...I was only mildly worried.

Our driver got us into Ansan and other passengers slowly petered out. Being the last one, he asked to clarify where I was going. "Jungang Yuk!". We got closer...then he looked to his GPS. It told him we were in Jungang, the region, but not at Jungang Yuk. I wasn't familiar with the location, so I just had him go towards the station. Thankfully, we came to a juncture I recognised. I had him stop, he asked for just 10000 won for the trip, and then I walked home.

Overall, the entire thing was pretty painless. It only cost me about $10 and I had a pretty entertaining trip. I'm certainly glad that I didn't have to sleep in the station until morning and I'm very glad I didn't even consider trying to walk the distance.

Thank goodness taxis are so cheap in this country. I suppose that that's another one of those topics for another day. Prices of things here....