Korea, the land of convenience!

I guess most of my blog entries have shown the bad aspects of life in Korea. However, there are good aspects as well. For example, Seoul offers so many convenience features that I’ll grow to take for granted in not so distant future. I’ll know it when I return to U.S. for a visit and say something like “How come there’s no blah blah blah in the U.S. It’s everywhere in Seoul. Gosh….”

The 주상복합 (mixture of residential and commercial facilities)

In Korea, there are mixed residential and commercial facilities in the same areas. Sometimes, there are 주상복합(mixed) buildings where within a residential officetel and/or apartment buildings, there are 1 or more floors of retail shops.

For Example, in the officetel building that I’m living in; the entire Basement 1st floor is a commercial floor. In it you will find 4 restaurants, a convenience store similar to a 7-11, a dry cleaner, a hair salon, a stationary store, 3 realtor offices, and a pub. If it’s raining, I can get a lot of things done without leaving the building without getting hit by a drop of rain.

If I walk out of the building, within 500 yards, there’s a subway station. Within 500 yards radius of the subway station are many more Korean restaurants and Western restaurants and others such as TGIF, Burger King, Subway, McDonalds, Chinese restaurants, Japanese restaurants, Italian restaurants, Pizza Hut, 6 banks, 6 convenience stores, bakeries, Starbucks and other coffee shops, more cafes and bakeries, and a movie theater. Granted not every location would have this many facilities.

If I need something, I can get a lot of things done by walking under 20 minutes or so within my neighborhood. It’s possible to get by in Seoul without owning a car because of the fact that residential and commercial facilities are mixed together and the fact that the subway, buses and taxis are ubiquitous and inexpensive.

I’ll write a separate blog entry about Seoul’s transportation system later.