On my final day in Korea, I decided to brave the subway to go from Incheon into Seoul. As you can see, the subway system is extensive. It took three trains to get where I was going. I think I missed one chance to take an express instead of a local, but otherwise I did ok.

Although there were many signs in English, I found it really disorienting to mostly not be able to read anything. I’m used to traveling in Europe, where I can at least understand the letters. But when nothing about the alphabet makes sense… man, you are lost!

Here’s a typical retail block. On the street level, it’s mostly restaurants and clothing or souvenir or that sort of thing. But actually there’s all manner of things inside, identified by those neon signs. What wonders await?? Luckily, Google Lens worked remarkably well and I could read almost all those signs off a translated picture. I bought an eSIM with lots of cheap data, and went through most of it.

At the end of my day in Seoul, the returning train was standing room only. Everyone was tired, including this daddy-daughter duo who slept soundly until about one minute before they got off.