Modes of Transportation

By Foot - For just over a year now we have been perfecting our skills at figuring out how to use public transportation in and around Seoul and our own city of Ilsan. We were originally told that our schools were within walking distance from our apartment, so that's how we started - on the 4 good legs God has given us. That didn't last long - it took us 35 minutes at a brisk pace to get to my school, and Cory's is 5-10 minutes beyond that. The first day I had blisters from where my strappy Guam heels were cutting into my feet!

By Bus - So we quickly learned a little about the bus system. At first, you just find a bus that you know will end up where you want it to - so for school it was easy. However, the bus routes are almost 100% written in Korean. Learning to read Korean became more and more necessary. Cory picked it up quickly and I think I am finally at a point where I can read or at least recognize what I am looking for. I am pleased to say that now we use the bus system quite easily. Not that there haven't been a few mistakes along the way! :)

By Subway - Traveling in and out of Seoul is about an hour by subway. We are about a 10 minute walk from the nearest station, so it's pretty convenient. The church we have joined is in Seoul, so we began taking the subway every weekend. Cory would go into the city on Saturday nights for the praise team practice and then we would travel down on Sunday for church. From door to door it took us about an hour and 15 minutes. That's a lot farther than I've ever traveled for church every Sunday!

We've had our share of interesting subway experiences. Although I've never seen anything that made me feel unsafe, there have been many times I have felt my personal space being infringed upon! One of the most memorable times was after watching FC Seoul play LA Galaxy with David Beckham. After the game every foreigner and Korean Beckham-lover in Seoul were trying to cram onto the subway trains. We thronged to get into the subway station, thronged to get to the train platform, and thronged to get on a train each time one came through. Here is a shot that doesn't quite do it justice . . .

ALL of that to say this. We now have a new mode of transportation. Cory was thinking scooter, but we ended up with this Daelim Daystar motorcycle! Isn't it nice looking? Our pastor here has a scooter and advised Cory that they don't get as good gas mileage as a motorcycle, and we knew we would be traveling just under an hour one way to get into Seoul several times a week.

Not only is it FUN, but it enables us to get to the city so much faster. We feel much more capable of joining Bible studies during the week and are saving money when we both go down on it rather than taking public transportation. It is getting a little colder these days, but in January our situation is going to be changing a little anyway. More about that later.