{"id":4813,"date":"2019-07-21T10:27:27","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T17:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=4813"},"modified":"2019-07-21T10:27:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T17:27:27","slug":"korea-blog-43-reasons-everything-in-seoul-is-good-and-nothing-is-bad-or-something-like-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=4813","title":{"rendered":"Korea Blog: 43 Reasons Everything in Seoul Is Good and Nothing Is Bad (or Something Like That)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"999\" height=\"700\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/KB-43-reasons.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4814\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/KB-43-reasons.png 999w, http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/KB-43-reasons-300x210.png 300w, http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/KB-43-reasons-768x538.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 999px) 100vw, 999px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Waiting to step off a bus here in Seoul not long ago, I got an idea for not just a tweet but a whole Twitter thread. As usual, I had just tapped the exit-door reader with my transit card \u2014 but strictly speaking, it isn\u2019t a transit card of the kind used in Los Angeles or New York, one you have to keep topped up with periodic money refills at a machine. It\u2019s just my regular bank-issued debit card, the one I use to buy everything. It also works not only on all the buses and in all the train stations in Seoul, but on all the buses and in all the train stations everywhere in South Korea. Having by now grown used to that convenience and other, even more convenient conveniences besides, I got to wondering whether they\u2019ve collectively made it impossible for me to live outside Seoul, let alone in any of the comparatively ramshackle cities of the West, ever again.<\/p><p>Right there at my bus stop, I began\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/colinmarshall\/status\/1110838876157800449\">a thread of \u201cthings Seoul has that give me serious reservations about ever living in any other city\u201d<\/a>\u00a0as follows:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The card I pay for transit with is just my regular debit card (so no need to \u201cfill it up\u201d) and it works in every city in the entire country<\/li><li>Every subway station has bathrooms, without exception, and not the kind you would only use under great duress<\/li><li>Almost every subway station has coin lockers (just a name, since I pay with the aforementioned debt card), so you seldom have to worry about dragging bags, etc. around all day<\/li><li>You save your table at a coffee shop by putting your most expensive personal item down on it. You don\u2019t ask a nearby random to guard your stuff if you have to go to the bathroom<\/li><li>A Starbucks can move into a neighborhood \u2014 or more than one Starbucks \u2014 without \u201cdriving out\u201d the smaller chains and indies, which just seem to multiply as a result<\/li><li>Literally everything I would ever need in life, up to and including higher education and hospitals, lies within a ten minute walk of home. (This is in no way an exaggeration)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read the whole thing <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.lareviewofbooks.org\/the-korea-blog\/43-reasons-everything-seoul-good-nothing-bad-something-like\/\">at the Los Angeles Review of Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Waiting to step off a bus here in Seoul not long ago, I got an idea for not just a tweet but a whole Twitter thread. As usual, I had just tapped the exit-door reader with my transit card \u2014 but strictly speaking, it isn\u2019t a transit card of the kind used in Los Angeles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4815,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions\/4815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}