Line 9 is Transportation!

Say that title to yourself the same way Chuck Heston (I met him once, so I can call him Chuck) says, "Soylent Green is People!" Just to inject a little drama into the blog, you understand.

So I took the train to the end of the line at Sinnonhyeon, which is in Gangnam, one of the rich, over-developed, central areas of Seoul. Well, right outside one of the exits (#7) was an enormous Kyobo bookstore, and having just finished the book I bought after I finished Mountains Beyond Mountains (look about four posts below this), this was a happy coincidence. I also ate a classic Italian sub at Quizno's in the Kyobo Tower building, and it was delish.

I bought two books, one of which is titled Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I think is one of the first novels to deal with the aftermath of September 11, 2001. I stopped off at Yeouido and walked around the park for a while, then settled in and read for a spell. Here are a few photos of Yeouido Park in mid-summer (click in the label cloud for photos and descriptions from my visits in winter and spring):





While I was in the park, I happened across a bit of a commotion, which turned out to be some filming, probably for a TV show--MBS, one of the major networks, is headquartered right across the street. I suppose it was one of the myriad goofy-ass reality-type shows they love here; in their zeal to be Western-ish, Koreans have made their TV just as insipid as the American version.

Anyway, in this vignette I witnessed, the host found a young couple and convinced the young man to put on a pink tee-shirt:


Then, a young woman (not his girlfriend) wearing a matching shirt rushed up and appeared to promise him her undying love. This vow is a required part of wearing the "couple shirts" so popular in Korea.


The scene ended when the young man rode off on a bicycle alongside the new girl, while his original girlfriend rode the opposite direction on a tandem with some other member of the production staff. The assembled crowd seemed to enjoy the spectacle:


Taking line 9 to the end and back, I observed a few things:
1) Express trains only come twenty minutes apart, while all-stop trains are about 6 minutes apart;
2) it is helpful to announce on all-stop trains at which station you may transfer to an express, however, announcing that express riders can switch to an all-stop train at every stop is unnecessary;
3) the time difference between regular service and the express is not all that great--the 11 minutes difference from Jeungmi to the end of line at Sinnonhyeon is less than you will wait for the next express to come along;
4) furthermore, if the first weekend of service is anything to go by (and it may not be, since I suspect there was a lot of subway tourism), express trains are SRO, and regular service is less crowded.