Stairs

Considering all the street food and the focus on food in Seoul I was surprised at how thin everyone is here. Before I got here I heard that a lot of the young women in Seoul are really extra skinny - and they are - so that was no surprise. But it's not just the young women, it's everyone. In NYC, probably one of the thinner cities, about every 3rd or 4th person is "chubby". Here every 100th person is overweight and they are usually the Canadian English teachers. I think that aside from simple (unfair) genetics, people stay thin here because of all the stairs.

We decided to take a little walking tour of Ewha Women's University Yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny day (although still freezing) and we willingly chose to walk up what felt like the Potemkin steps to the the upper area of the University. We thought it would be fun and a great photo op for the blog. Once we made it up all the stairs we decided it wasn't as much fun as we thought and we saw enough of the campus and we wanted out. It seemed that there would be an exit right around the corner of the next building. But there were only more stairs. We walked up staircase after staircase and pretty much hiked our way out of the campus. It took about 35 minutes, about 10 steep staircases and at least one hill to climb up to get out. By the time we reached the north gate of the University we were at the same level as their satellite dishes and electrical antennas. the air was thin and we were sweating.

I realize that the entire population of Seoul doesn't get lost on this one campus like we did, but they do take the subways and that's where the real stairs come in. There are many stations with escalators but most of them just have stairs. The stations are pretty deep down below ground and you have to climb your way up and down.

These are some of the stairs we walked up yesterday. There were many many more.