Seoul Subway Outing

Wade is the man. He carefully read reviews and studied maps. He initially found some sort of crazy-ass mega complex electronics store complex spread out in a compound of something like 1000+ stores. It was the biggest one in Asia. Kind of overkill though for a USB to ethernet adapter. So he discovered the smaller (but still pretty huge) Techno Mart and we decided to give it a go. All so that I could sit in our hotel room on our bed surfing. Either he really loves me, or he just can't stand to hear my continuous pissing and moaning. Likely it's both.

We found the metro station nearest our hotel and ventured down. The cleanliness was astounding. My house isn't as clean as this subway station was. The metro card machines and the maps all have English with the Korean. It took us a little while to figure out the best route and where we needed to transfer to a new line and we got our cards and off we went.

Me and the Soul Metro map

The ride was pretty long, probably 15 stops or so each way. It seemed long. The inside of the cars were as clean, if not cleaner, than the station. There's TV screens with information and ads playing in all the cars and there's a little tune that plays when the car stops. On the way back, the car had a light up subway map that glowed to indicate which stop you were at and had little lit-up arrows indicating the direction in between stops. Nothing like NYC. I am now convinced that foreign visitors to NYC who attempt the subway are the bravest people ever. If I was used to a transit system like this, and I went to New York, I would be utterly skeeved. Terrified possibly. Dank and full of unidentifiable smells and screeching of the brakes. I know New Yorkers are proud of their grit, but it's kinda gross. Seriously. You should be embarrassed. It doesn't have to be that way, clearly.

Anyway, we made it to Techno Mart at the Ganbyeon Station stop. We walked the wrong way out of the station at first and some nice man tried to give us directions in hand motions, but we eventually found the building. It was 8+ giant floors of shopping, heavy on the electronics from phones and computers to TVs and appliances but there were also clothes and accessories too. It was like Jersey Gardens but much taller and crammed full of even more shit. Wade, having done his homework knew which floor to go on to and we even found a seller who spoke English. We bought the adapter and a longer ethernet cable and a connector. Which is how I'm sitting on the bed typing this to you now.

Techno Mart

On the upper floor of the building is a food court of sorts, except it's not a court and it's more like a labyrinth of tiny shops and yummy smells. We ended up having some dumplings at a place that had some English on the menu, but no one in there spoke any. We ordered by pointing. They brought out some banchan just like at a Korean bbq and I was managing fine with the metal chopsticks, but when I tried to eat the dumpling with it, the woman came over and took a spoon and cut up my dumpling with it and spooned broth and sauce over it. I don't know if she felt bad for me, or if she was upset that I wasn't eating it right. Regardless, they were very yummy.

So here we are. It's ten to eight here and I'm trying to keep my eyes open. Hopefully I can blame this on still having jet lag and not that I'm tired and I suck. If I fall asleep at 8pm, it will probably be a good thing, since we have a Very Big Day ahead of us tomorrow. Maybe the biggest day ever.