KTX Round Trip

Riding the KTX, like I said before, is easy. I am sitting here comfortably in my seat aboard the 16:40 to Dongdaegu, as clearly stated by the large screen TV hanging from the ceiling. The train is clean, it runs ridiculously consistently on time (would we expect anything less from an Asian train system??), and it is easy to navigate – I'm talking both the train and the train stations I've experienced so far. This is such a relief.

Back in September, my big brother, sis-in-law and I had quite a different experience in Rome. The Romans, God love 'em (but Sandi, to this day, does not!:) ), can be silly and rude. Rome Station is crowded, smelling of pasta, meatballs, and French non-deoderant. It's dirty and, I'm not going to lie, a little scary. The signs are not in English - of course...who would expect them to be?? - but they never scroll to English, and the end points are not always the best known cities in Italy...especially when traveling South! Jim, Sandi and I must have stood on the outskirts of about 3 different tracks that day, wondering which train was ours. We even tried out our feminine wiles (well, not Jim:) ) on some burly Roman engineers, batting our eyes and asking in our best Ita-glish “Is this the right track to Paola??” And of course, we couldn't go simply by the schedule, because Italian trains are notoriously late!! People stared, we got a little panicky, and finally ended up guessing the right track correctly, but then we had a hell of time deciphering which car/seats were ours:) And that was all in the Latin alphabet with some knowledge of the language.

So you can only imagine my inner dread (not that I'd let that on to my parents!) when I considered having to do all that in a character alphabet, alone, and completely illiterate and mute, so-to-speak. But I have found the absolute opposite of everything Roman to be true here in Korea – praise baby Jesus! So never fear, all you lovely people who wish to come visit me:) Most posted signs are in Hongul AND English (and Chinese, if you're so talented); all cars are clearly marked with the number, and all seats are numbered and delineated aisle or window; the engineers guide the train to the proper, marked/numbered spot on the platform in the station every time; There are station managers who do speak English ready to help, and even regular passengers who don't even speak your language will take you by the hand and lead you to your track if you are lost; other passengers are orderly, line up at the car, and wait for departing passengers to disembark AND the cleaning crew to come through and tidy up before they board in orderly fashion. All stops are announced loudly enough to wake anyone who's dozed, but not offensively, again in both Korean and English. In short, it is a tourist's dream.

Things run a lot on trust, here, too – the beauty of a shame culture, I suppose? For example, anyone can walk into Seoul station and down on the platforms, but they “trust” (and this is written in Hongul and English at the entrance to the train tracks) that everyone who boards the train has a ticket. They do not check or collect tickets, however – I took mine out to display it on the way here and the steward looked at me funny, as did the passenger beside me:) And do I need to tell you about the snack carts??? YES! They are chock full of all kinds of cooked, sugared, sweet and savory goodies (Koreans love their candy!!), as well as coffee, tea and adult beverages. In short, it is a very enjoyable ride:)

So as I clickety-clack out of Seoul, my fellow passengers are reading books, playing video games, checking their email, writing on their computers, and even (already, 10 minutes in!) sleeping. Its quiet, no one is talking loudly on the phone, there is no music blaring, there is no trash on the floor. The TV is now playing news, but it is silent with captions. AND, I could totally post this little diatribe if only I read Hongul to log in, because of course there is wireless internet on the train!! (Must get on those language lessons!!!)

I think I could get used to all this;)