Subway and directions in Korean

Most visitors use a T-money card, a stored-value card sold at convenience stores and station machines and topped up at either. You tap it on the reader going in and again coming out, since the fare depends on distance. On buses, tap as you get on and again as you get off, because the free transfer between bus and subway depends on it. Single-use tickets are sold from station machines with a 500 won deposit, which a refund machine near the exit gives back.

Seoul's lines are numbered, 1호선 to 9호선, and each has a colour that people use as much as the number: line 2 is the green one that runs in a loop. Platforms are signed by direction, given as the next station and the end of the line, which is why knowing the station after yours helps. Changing trains is 갈아타다, and the signs for it say 환승 (hwanseung), 'transfer'. Announcements come in Korean first and then English.

Every exit from a Korean station has a number, and directions are given by exit rather than by street: a restaurant's listing on a map app will say something like 2번 출구 'exit 2' and a walking time. Big stations have ten or more exits coming up on different corners of a junction, so the wrong one can mean crossing a main road the long way round. The numbers are signed at every stairway, and the maps by the gates show what is above each exit.

Directions come back as polite requests in the -(으)세요 form from day 26, so listen for the last word: 가세요 'go', 도세요 'turn', 건너세요 'cross'. People steer by landmarks and traffic lights, 신호등 (sinhodeung), rather than street names, which most do not use in speech. For walking directions, the Korean map apps, Naver Map and Kakao Map, are more complete and more reliable than Google Maps, whose coverage in Korea has long been limited.

Taxi drivers work from a place name or an address, not from turn-by-turn instructions, so show the address in Hangul on your phone and say 여기로 가 주세요 (yeogiro ga juseyo). Taxis take transport cards and bank cards as well as cash. On city buses you board at the front, and you press one of the red buttons on the poles before your stop, since the driver will not stop otherwise. 에서 내려요 'get off at' is from day 29.