Seoul is pretty well connected, having very comprehensive metro lines that may frighten anyone who sees it for the first time (though many will also jump in and say this is so much simpler than Tokyo). I agree, but this is complicated enough.
Taking a Taxi is relatively cheap too compared to Singapore, and is aplenty along the street.
HOWEVER, having said that, travelling around Seoul can be confusing and painful. I believe the locals are equally confused as well as we've seen locals asking around about the routes and even have locals coming to us asking for help.
Taking the Subway
Let's take 1 example. We stay at Hongdae (hongik university station). To go to Myengdong, we take the AREX line to Seoul Station (2 stops), change to Line 4 and Myengdong is 2 stops after. If you use the app, it says its 4 stations 20 mins. Sounds simple enough, and honestly, it's not hard. The difficult part is the long flight of stars and long walks to the other station, which is definitely not baby/elderly/super-tired-after-a-long-day-of shopping friendly. To transfer from Seoul Station, you'll need to go up and down a few stairs (I think there's escalator), walk quite a bit, exit Seoul station, walk somemore, to change to Line 4. Please estimate another around 10 mins walk from AREX seoul station to Line 4. and if you have a lot of shopping bags, good luck! :)
Otherwise, Seoul's metro station can really get us everywhere we want to. As long as you're prepared to walk and climb a few stairs, the metro is really awesome and comprehensive to bring you anywhere.
Taking a Taxi
"Since it's so troublesome to take the subway, let's take a cab!" I told the Husband 1 day after a long day of shopping. Friends have warned me about cabbing in Seoul, that it's not the easiest place around to get a cab. I don't believe. How bad can it get right? Well, try hiring for a cab for 30mins to no avail in the cold in -8 degrees. Brrr.....
Before the trip, I was quite wary about communication problem so I prepared little cards with places we want to go with names and addresses in Korean. I mean, if they don't understand I can just past them the card and they can surely read right?
The only place I attempted to take a cab to is back to our guesthouse at Hongdae. Armed with my little card, as well as the guesthouse's name card, we proceed to hire a cab and told them "Hongdae", They gave us a confused/puzzled look. (maybe our pronunciation is off) We passed them the card, they still look confused or just shake their head (we have no idea if they have no idea how to go, or they don't want to go). There was this cab driver who decided to take us, and keyed in the address into his GPS but sent us to the wrong place! He sent us to Edae instead. I recognized the place as we went there in the morning and told him "No, wrong place" but he insisted its correct and want us to alight. Thank god there's a subway nearby and it's still running and we managed to catch the last train back.
The other time was after we went to Silom jijimbang. It was past midnight and the trains have stopped running so we had to take a cab. It was freeezing that night and the above scenario repeat again. It was really paining, and I was really panicking. What if we couldn't get a cab back? I have no idea how to walk back from Seoul Station. and it was really freezing.
Thank god one cab driver (probably take pity on me as I looked so cold?), and decided to take us although he doesn't seem to understand where we are going despite us showing them the address. I showed him my subway mobile app and showed him Hongik University station hoping he will understand since we can easily walk back to the guesthouse from there. He don't understand too. He keep saying Sinchon (which is near to Hongdae), so I told him further. Hongdae Hongdae. We still decided to take the cab even though he doesn't seem to know the place since there's really no other choices and I'm thinking perhaps we can guide him. Well, not knowing a single Korean was really painful cos he don't understand and we don't understand what he's telling us. We can see he's in the right direction and suddenly he stopped and ask us to alight. We told him to go straight further, and he started blabling on what we don't understand. No choice we have to alight and wander out in the cold again. Thank god there's English wordings on the road signs and we can see that we seem to be on the right way, and our place is like 15 streets down the road? So we started walking in the freezing cold (it was quite an experience actually), and imagine our delight when we finally see our guesthouse around 20mins later! even though the uncle dropped us at some random place, I'm still thankful to him that he dropped us somewhere that we can walk back. No matter what it's better than being stuck in the middle of nowhere in Seoul, out in the freezing cold with no idea how to get back to the guesthouse. =/
Tips:
- Download the Korea Subway App on your phone. This is a life saver and a MUST if you intend to travel via subway. You can select the station you're at, and the station you're travelling to and it will calculate and show you the recommended route, time required and cost. best thing is it works offline (with no network). this is the one I used.
- get T-mobile. This is like Ezlink in Singapore, and you'll get a discount on rides, and do not have to get a ticket each and every ride. super convenient. :)
