It's at Itaewon

I met up with some of the folks from training in a district of downtown Seoul called Itaewon on Saturday afternoon. It took me forty-five minutes: 10 minute walk to busstop, 15 minute ride to Hapjeong Station (line 2-6 junction), 5 minutes wandering around the station, 15 minutes on Line 6 subway to Itaewon Station, Exit 1, where Karen was kind enough to wait for me.

Above is a map of a small section of the subway. I live about at the last "o" in Omokgyo. For a full-size map, click here. On the way home, I successfully navigated to the station and made it to the busstop. I was unsure which side of the road to stand on, and every bus was packed like a proverbial sardine can. Twenty minutes of that would be okay, but an hour was too much (if I was headed out instead of in), so I took a taxi. It only cost 5000 W from Hapjeong to my officetel.

Now, about Itaewon: this is the best-known hang-out area for ex-pats in Seoul. Initial stop was 3 Alley, Karen's favorite place--by 15:00, I was hungry, and got a huge, well-cooked sirloin steak with some delicious potatoes for 18,500 W, about what you'd pay at Outback back home.

Later, we went to buy me a cellphone, and walked down the street to an Irish pub called Wolfhound while waiting for the account to be set up (visited my first PC-bang, as well, to print off a copy of my passport for the cellphone paperwork). They had a number of Irish ales, but the music was geared to the, um, younger crowd. Final stop was Seoul Bar, where the conversation was monopolized by a tall, obnoxious Scandanavian named Johann who is a safety inspector for KAL. Also met a bushy-browed Scot named Bob who is an operations specialist for the subway system.

On the way home, I finally bought a T-Money card, which is a public transport pass you just place on a sensor pad at the beginning and end of your trip, and it subtracts the correct amount from your account.

Though I'm not really a bar-crawler these days, it was fun, and I saw lots of places I want to come back to visit: Turkish kabobs, tandoori, Thai food. Oh, and Outback Steakhouse.
UPDATE (9/9/08, 8:00 PM): Photo of Seoul subway car on the way home, taken with my cellphone--