Seoul Metro has poetry printed on most of the safety doors on the platforms. Some poems are good, some are puzzling, some are thought provoking. This one spoke to me that day. I wish I could translate it to exactly convey the feeling, but poetry really doesn't translate well unless in the hands of a brilliant writer.
Seoul Express Bus Terminal. (Yes, I go to that neighborhood a lot and not only because Shinsegae Department Store's wine shop has a good selection and friendly staff.)
It has been raining constantly for the past two weeks. Monsoon season gets pretty dreary but I find myself filming rainy moments more than any other.
I use public transportation a lot. I usually read on the metro; something I can't do on the bus because I get carsick. I either doze off, stare aimlessly out the window, or make unedited "as is" video clips.
I didn't realize how large a river the Han was until I saw rivers in other countries. Like the first time I saw the Seine. 'That's a river????', I thought. It looked like what we Seoulites would call a brook or a stream. You could cross it on foot in 15 minutes or less, whereas I don't think anyone in their right mind would cross the Han by walking, as it'll probably take 40 minutes to an hour. (I miss the Seine. Crossing a river on foot seems like a quaint luxury, now.)
The Han is flanked by highways on each bank, the 88 Olympic highway to the south and Gangbyeonbukro (literally, North Riverbank Highway) to the north. This clip was taken on Gangbyeonbukro from a bus on a cloudy day, traveling west to east.
I feel like going somewhere. I actually don't like to travel, though. Perhaps it's due to my long history of motion sickness, but I'm like the kid in the back seat with the perpetual question: "Are we there yet?" I want to be there already.
Reason why I prefer buses to the metro; at least you have an outside view. Cars and taxis, you're most likely to be staring at the rear end of another car or drivers in other lanes from typical bumper-to-bumper traffic. Bus seats are up higher; you can see the sky without straining your neck muscles.
Don't like to fly either, view or not. After a while one cloud starts looking very much like another so the view isn't a plus. I'm slightly claustrophobic (always an aisle seat for me) and also a bit OCD (my sis will probably yell, "whaddaya mean, a bit?", but hey) so being stuck in a flying container with recycled air kind of bugs me.
But I still want to be in other places. Summer vacation plans are swimming in my head already.
To go to/come from Incheon Airport from/to Seoul, you have to cross the Incheon Bridge, which rests above a stretch of sea between the mainland and Yeongjong Island. It's a looooooooong bridge with a great view.
I took a video on a rainy cloudy day of a bus trip across the bridge where the sea looked like somber gray liquid slate. Didn't film the whole ride - it would have been utterly boring - but the video shows my ride as it truly was:
To break away from my "I'm up to my neck in the busy-as-heck swamp" mode, I've uploaded a video clip of a bus ride I took last month from the Seoul Arts Center to about Gangnam Station. It's from one of those mini maeul buses (village bus = neighborhood bus) that goes through mainly residential areas peppered with a bit of commercial zones.
It's a pretty long vid; it's in real time. Don't know why the camera (took the vid with my point-and-shoot) picked up so much static. Anyhow, check out how many coffee shops are passed in that short period of time, and also check out the cool light saber-esque streetlights that district has. It ends a bit abruptly as I had to hurry to not miss my stop.
I caught a bus during the holidays and this is what I saw:
Multicolor handles aren't that strange. Neither was the fact that the bus was practically empty; it was the holidays and Seoul is pretty quiet then. What was weird were these:
There were like a dozen of them attached above the windows. The banner reads: "The new flu (i.e. swine flu) is becoming an epidemic. Please pay attention to personal hygiene." The other baskets probably had other similar messages on them.
There were posters on the windows as well, issued by the KCDC (Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Of course, this is Korea, so the poster has to be cute, even for something as serious as this. We Koreans take cute quite seriously.
Let's Keep These Rules Together 1. Pay close attention to personal hygiene! 2. Observe etiquette! 3. Be careful of crowds! 4. Recover without worry! 5. Rest well, drink a lot of fluids! 6. Seeing the doctor is a must!
I've never seen these PSAs on other bus routes; I wonder why this bus company was chosen to do so. I also wonder if other countries are as this sensitive to the swine flu epidemic as we Koreans are.
What torrential monsoon rain looks and sounds like from a car on the highway. The camera made everything clearer than what it actually looked like. The road was barely visible.
