Life in Seoul

     I have been living in Seoul, South Korea for about a week now and it has been a great experience. Now I am not going to go into great depth about what specific things are like in this post, but I will go over some of the things that I have  experienced and I will also be talking about what the society is like as a whole.

      First arriving in Seoul, all I wanted to do was go out and explore the city, but Seoul is a complex one. If you don't know by now, Seoul is a huge city divided by the Hangang River. It is broken into multiple sections, each with their own name. Each of these areas are broken down even further depending on what subway station you are near. The area I am currently in is called Sinchon because the Sinchon station is the closest to my university. Traveling to other areas, though, is easily accessible through trains, buses, and taxis, as it can only take a matter of a few minutes to travel into a different section of Seoul via train.Once I learned this, I was free to explore the city, although I think it is best to explore your own area first before you go out to others.
       In Sinchon, everywhere you look there are restaurants and shopping stores. Although I did not know this at the time, in actuallity, most of Seoul is like this. The restaurants are fairly compact together and they are even stacked up horizontally on top of each other. This is different from the U.S. because most shops are standing vertically right next to each other, using the top floors of their building as office space (Ex. III). In Korea though, the shops are horizontally stacked so you have to look up the building to see what is all in it (each floor is a different store or restaurant). If you aren't distracted enough looking up at the shops while you are walking, you will be navigating through the bikes, cars, and street vendors that line the sidewalks. Yes, in S. Korea cars are allowed to park on the sidewalk if necessary, delivery bikes are allowed to drive on them, and if there weren't enough restaurants, street vendors line the sidewalks so you can sit under their cover and eat at them.Thinking about it more, it appears that within an area by a subway station, it is divided yet again by shopping and eating districts. All the places to eat and vendors are located in the same area and close by you will find that all the places you see are shopping centers. These two ares, shopping and eating, are always placed right next to each other so it is hard to tell when you move from one to another. Besides eating and shopping areas, convenience stores, movie theaters, and back ally ways though, I haven't seen much else to the life of Seoul. In my opinion, I believe there are major business areas more towards the river in Seoul and that these too are clumped together into the types of businesses you find in a certain area. You would think that this would be bad for business, but with such a large number of people living in Seoul, I would imagine each of these places does fairly well in clumped areas because it draws a crowd.

        As for the people of Seoul, I can generalize that most I have run into are friendly people when you talk with them. That may just be because they are trying to sell you something, but most people know basic English and are willing to help you understand what they are talking about. The encounter with people walking down the sidewalk though is a different story. In Korea, people don't like to make eye contact because it is awkward. If they do make eye contact, they never look friendly about it. Most people, I assume, are just trying to get from point A to point B and if you are wondering around slowly you will get pushed around or pushed off into the street. The sidewalks can get very crowded, but occasionally you will have someone say Hi to you in English, which is a nice treat. I even had someone shake my hand once. They seem very welcoming to American students, but I assume that is because of the relationship they have with the U.S.
       Coming into Seoul, there is also plenty of things to go out and experience, and each section of the city is known for something particularly. So far I have been to the Korean palaces, some entertainment buildings, I have shopped in Insa-dong, and I have a long list of other things I would like to do, like see the Seoul Tower and the Rainbow bridge. If you are coming to Seoul, I would suggest making a list of everything you want to do so that you can complete it all and find other things to do and also so that you experience the city to its full potential.