No. 1 must-know when visiting Korea?! 🚕 💜

Don't make this mistake!

2022. 12. 9.

Teugether Today

Breaking News in Korea
Transportation guide!
Korean Slang <3

❤️ Hello Everyone~! ❤️

A lot of you seemed to like last week's newsletter so I decided to keep this format and teach you about current news in Korea along with some slang and useful tips! Let’s get right into it. 😉

There were subway strikes happening in seoul for the past couple of weeks. Long story short, Seoul Metro wanted to cut around 10% of its staff in the next 2-3 years and the workers were on a strike to prevent this from happening. 🪧 The strike lasted a couple of weeks and delayed the train schedules which caused an inconvenience for a lot of people here in Seoul :(( 😔

I was really annoyed about my daily life getting inconvenienced (as a lot of people were) but this Tiktok made me laugh ⬇️

Watch it here!

Living in Korea all my life, I never realized that we’re so peaceful with our strikes LOL. This video made me realize that a little inconvenience never hurt anybody! 😆

Anyways, that wraps it up for the current news in Korea, now let’s learn something useful! Now that Covid restrictions are easing up, are you guys looking forward to traveling to Korea?! ✈️

Whether you're coming soon or planning to come later in the future, I thought learning about Korean public transportation would be helpful for you guys so I've put together a little guide 😃 ❤️

✨ Korean Transportation Guide for Dummies ✨

For an overview we have three basic modes of transportation for everyday:

🚎 Bus (버스) - (buh-sseu)
🚊 Subway (지하철)- (ji-ha-cheol)
🚕 Taxi (택시)- (tek-si)

And if you are traveling a longer distance there are two more:

🚌 Express Bus (고속버스) - (go-seok buh-sseu)
🚆 Train (기차) - (gi-cha)

Let’s learn about them in detail! ⬇️

1. 버스 & 지하철 ✨

(Bus and Subway)

버스 and 지하철 are probably the most affordable ways to get around in Seoul, most people will go to work with these two methods!

There are two major apps that you can use to see the timings/figure out what method is the fastest and that would be Kakaomap or Naver map! PSA: We do not use Google maps in Korea, it is so inaccurate!

To ride the bus or subway you will need a T-money card or a Korean bank card that doubles as a transportation card! (they're even customizable) ⬇️⬇️⬇️

2. 택시 🚕

(Taxi)

As for 택시 you can just hail one off of the street or you can call one! There are so many apps but the one that seems to be the most popular (especially for travelers) seems to be Kakao Taxi! This app doesn’t require you to register your card (usually has to be a Korean card) so it works for people who are traveling!

Of course Uber works here too but it’s not the same system as in the US where people use their own cars to drive you, uber taxis are the same as other taxis! But as always Kakao is the best!

*do I have to mention that this newsletter is not sponsored lol I wish it was though pls sponsor me kakao*

Now we only have two transportation methods left! These are used for further distances and not used on the daily (for most people). If you want to travel to another city like Busan or Sokcho you could take either the 고속버스 or 기차!

3. 고속버스 🚌

(Express Bus)

If you want to ride an express bus you can’t use the same card as the one used for regular buses/subways, you need to purchase a separate ticket! Prices are still SUPER affordable compared to the US though! If you want to reserve a ticket you can search your location with “고속버스" on Naver! The website I personally use is bustago though :) they have english, japanese, chinese too!

The express bus is super comfortable but not as fast as riding a train (기차) ! Take a look at this picture to see what the bus looks like! ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

4. 기차 (KTX, SRT) 🚆

(Train)

Last but definitely not least, is the 기차! These are the long distance trains that we ride in Korea and among these is the famous KTX or bullet train! This train is super fast and you can get from one end of Korea to the other in only 2-ish hours! It is the most expensive out of the lot but is still usually less than 50$!

There are other options that aren’t KTX but they are a bit slower! To reserve or learn more, you can download the Korail app! (also available in english hehe)

Okay, phew! That got way longer than I meant for it to! I didn’t want to leave out important information for you guys though :) Let’s end this newsletter with a new Korean slang word!

🧡 버카충 (buh-ka-choong)

(버스 카드 충전 - buh-seuh ka-deuh choong-jeon)

So! As we talked about before, there is a transportation card which is the T-money card! People call it 버스카드 as well which is “bus card” Soooo when someone talks about charging their bus card in Korean that would be "버스 카드 충전" (buh-seuh ka-deuh choong-jeon). 버스 is bus, 카드 is card, and 충전 is charge.

Since it is kind of a mouthful, the sentence has been shortened into a slang word:

“버카충” which is a combination of the first character of each word!

There you go! You're one step closer to being a native speaker :)

Hope you guys enjoyed this week’s newsletter and look forward to the next one as well! Have a good day!!! <3

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