A visit to Songtan...

W e had planned to go to out around Ansan on Sunday, for a bit of a stroll, which would have led to more furniture shopping, and looking for the latest blockbusters on DVD at Ansan railroad station, so we suggested to our neighbours that if they were at a loose end, they could join us. It turned out that they were originally heading to Devil’s Island, near Oido on the coast, at the end of line 4 for a day at the seaside with some of their Korean friends; They got let down, and suggested to us that a trip into Songtan would be more fun. We dashed over to a little shop called VD (I cant remember the full name of the shop, but that’s how they call themselves short form). We bought a cracking big solid wood coffee table and two bedside drawers all for the princely sum of around 180GBP – delivered next day too! We headed back to meet up with our friends at the gap in the fence round the complex and headed off at 12 noon.
The trip to Songtan involved a bus, and two trains. I had not been on a bus in Korea until this point. We caught the bus and took it to Gojan station to pick up the train. The ride there cost 800KRW which is about 35p in English money. It turns out that if you take a bus ride, and then catch a train, the train ride is free until you get off to transfer. We used our T cards, which is like travel money loaded onto an RF card. This is swiped when you get on and off the bus, and through the gates at the rail stations. Transport is incredibly cheap in Korea, as previously mentioned and reliable too. The total cost for the day’s travel bearing in mind the train ride was about an hour each way? – about 2.50 GBP !

Songtan is centered around a joint Korean/USAF air base, and full of GI’s. All the local shops are also centered around this population, with lots of American brand cigarettes, eating places, large size clothes shops, and most if not all trading in the American Dollar! All we had with us was Korean Won, which drew some surprised looks at some stores we went into. Although the Dollar is king here, the price of goods is more expensive that that of shopping in Ansan, and the rate of exchange is lousy if trying to buy in Won, but I guess they have a captive market here, with most base personnel not wishing to venture out past the town limits.

We made our way to a store with blacked windows with writing which said “DVD, GAMES, CD’s” This was a little store which would have come with a special license back in the UK, and would have been off limits to anyone under the age of 21! Instead, inside, they had shelves of empty DVD and CD cases with colour copies of the latest cinema blockbuster movies, and ones which had just been released onto DVD in the regular stores. The difference? All of these movies were carefully copied onto bright new shiny re-writable DVD’s and came with more colour copies of the covers which were of dubious origins. 3 for 10,000KRW (about 4GBP). OK, I know it’s probably not right buying these things, but when in Rome right? Everyone’s bought a Rolex made from tin cans at some point.

We got back, exhausted but happy we had made the trip, even if just to see what it was like.