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Shincheon is the name of the part of Seoul near campus which has a really big night life.  I will describe a  little bit of it to you. Because it’s near campus it’s got a ton of businesses packed in together but there is a limited selection in the kind of things there are to do.  For whatever reason there are at least 15 drug stores all together around the closest intersection, and a million bars, coffee shops, karaoke bars, and “pc rooms”. There isn’t a lot of shopping to do right by campus but there is close by.  At ni

ght time street vendors come out with their carts selling food and tons of cheap jewelry, socks, and accessories.  I have been out almost every night and the streets were just packed with people.  Apparently the thing college students like to do most all day is sit at coffee shops buying REALLY expensive coffee (5 dollars on average for something very simple) and talking, and then when they are done they just go to another coffee shop and do the same thing.  At night everyone seems to just drink a lot.  But there is a lot of cheap eating and an AMAZING bakery that I must admit I’ve hit up at least 3 times in the last week.

After Susie opened my eyes to the wonder of the subway the city got even more amazing.  First of all, the subway is actually a mall. Underground there is a whole new selection of shops and restaurants and coffee shops to choose from.  The grocery store is there– a real one, with tons of fresh produce and meats etc Around campus I’ve only been able to find convenience store type food and fruit that people are selling out of produce carts.  The subway system itself is very simple.  You can charge either your student id, bank card, or even cell phone charm and then you just wave it over the gate and it’ll deduct a flat rate of 900 won (90 cents).  Depending on how far you ride when you get off you wave your card again and either get charged nothing, or maybe 100 or 200 won if you rode very far away. The same card is used for riding the busses and even most taxis have a reader that you can pay for your ride with your subway card.