Study Abroad in Korea: Taking Public Transportation in Seoul

Imagine: You just got to your accommodation from the airport bus, and now you want to go to Hongdae to party until the first train the next morning. How do you get there? Why doesn’t the subway run all night? How do I even pay? All of these questions can be answered by the end of this post!

Seoul is a giant mega metropolis: over half of Korea lives in the metro area. No, you read that right, half the country lives within the capital’s sprawling metro system. It’s a big city, but boy can you notice the overcrowding during rush hour. Because there are so many people, many of the city’s main attractions and directions are situated near subway stops. For your reference, there are 20 lines operating throughout the metropolitan area. On top of that, there are 4 main types of buses you can take to get you closer to your destination if it isn’t quite near a station.

How do I pay?

What you want to do immediately after you get situated is take yourself to a GS25 and buy a Pop T-Money Card. You can buy the normal ones from any convenience store or the subway vending machine near the fare machines, sure, but this card, in particular, gives you access to not only fare payment in other major cities in Korea, but a built-in membership card for a slew of stores, which means discounts! If you can keep up a good habit of refilling it, it’s completely worth it. Oh, not to mention it’s the same price as a normal T-Money card at ₩2,500 so…you have nothing to lose! If you’re not confident in your Korean, just say “Pop T-Money Card 주세요.”

Navigating Seoul

The next tool in your arsenal is a smartphone…which you should 100% have because if you don’t, you miss out on a lot of Seoul and you will get extremely lost. Even Koreans get lost on a regular basis, and the last thing you need to is to get lost with a language barrier.

So assuming you now have a smartphone (yeah, I waited for you!) I need you to go download KakaoMap (Android, iOS), KakaoMetro (Android, iOS), and KakaoBus (Android, iOS). Yes, all three! Delete Tinder if you have to (trust, you won’t need that here!). These will be your lifesaving tools. Your 411, personal tour guide without having to make awkward conversation with Koreans afraid of using English. Make sure you have the location function turned on, use the sparingly-available free wifi (or if you have data, preserve it just for this and KakaoTalk), and pleaaase come to Korea knowing Hangeul (it takes like an hour tops!). As long as you can type what you see, you won’t even need to know what it means…even though that helps too.

 

How do I get on?

Alright, finally to the meat and potatoes. You made it to the subway station at Exit X (x = any number 1-10, because Seoul is ridiculous), and now you just need to get on.

In pretty much all of Korea, you tap your transit card once when you get on, and once when you get off. So if you’re catching the subway, you’ll tap yourself into the turnstile, and you tap when you exit the station. Don’t worry, everyone else is doing it, so when in doubt, just follow the crowd. Look at how easy Joan Kim makes it look! (Skip to 0:49)

How do I get there?

“But how do I get past this funny looking…gate thing…

“and which way do I go…

“and what time does the train come exactly…?”

Everything can be answered by:

Gosh look how helpful that is. Hell, you don’t even need to know Korean to use KakaoMetro. KakaoMap does need some amount of Korean knowledge, but as long as you can read a map I don’t think you’ll be too lost if you’re not very proficient.

As long as you know what station you’re at, and what station you need to go to, you have everything you need. KakaoMetro tells you the departure time, what direction to take, and so so much more. Tadah!

Ok, so you made it to your “B” station from your “A”, and somehow even found the correct exit, but you need to take a bus. Darn, a bus? This is awkward, I haven’t told you how to do that yet. Ready for this?

Whoa, it’s like they thought about this or something. This is where you turn on your location and it tells you the closest bus stop! Unfortunately, you do kind of need to know how to read in order to get the bus stop, but you can use KakaoMap to figure out what direction you need to go in. This comes more in handy when you know what bus you need and really just need to know when the next one is coming. Once you find your bus stop, you wait in line until the bus arrives. File on, tap your T-Money card on the reader (free transfer!), squeeze through the crowd of people, and hold on for dear life because you might fall down…

What about bus/subway etiquette?

There’s not a whole lot different about being on public transportation in Seoul as other countries, but there are some things you should know.

First, get used to standing if you’re young and able-bodied because old people will judge you if you’re sitting and they’re standing. When I was in Seoul, I almost always stood unless I was on SNU’s campus shuttle or it was a particularly empty train and it would look weird if I was just…standing.

Another thing is noise. You don’t have to be silent, but if you’re with a group of friends, you should keep it down so that it’s at a normal conversation level or lower. Again, you’ll get dirty looks if you break this norm.

Finally, there are some lovely seats on the subway that tell you who gets priority in them.  The red seats (sometimes they’re colored differently depending on the subway line, but always have the sign) are prioritized for elderly, pregnant, and disabled patrons. The pink seats are a new feature designated specifically for pregnant patrons. I never bothered to sit in any of them because I didn’t want to have to be on alert for someone who needed to sit. I think most young people avoid the red seats altogether because for some reason there’s some crazy stigma about even sitting in those seats in the first place.

hyolee2 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D

http://www.koreatimesus.com/seoul-to-offer-priority-seats-for-pregnant-women-on-all-subway-lines/

Bottom Line

This is pretty much the gist of public transportation here in Seoul. It looks complicated on the outside, and yeah, it kind of is, but it’s really user-friendly. I caught the subway within hours of being in the country, and I didn’t get lost once (although I DID get lost trying to get to my apartment walking from the station), so I know you can do it! Contact me if you have any questions, and have a blast in Seoul~