Pedestrian Life in Seoul

I have been meaning to write this in a blog for a while, but I keep forgetting, so now my comments on pedestrian life in Seoul gets its own post.

So, life as a pedestrian in Seoul is rather scary. I have learned to live by these rules.

1. Buses always have the right of way and will hit you if you are crossing the street.

1.5. When riding the bus, I am in a constant state of shock that they don't hit other cars or people constantly, but cars yield to them almost all of the time.

2. Cars are pedestrians. This includes driving on sidewalks, trying to hit you if you are crossing a small street that doesn't have stop signs or walk signs, trying to hit you if you are near them while they are backing up in the middle of the side walk, while also talking on a cell phone, even if you are attempting to make your way around the car, which cannot happen without pedestrian being hit by said car.

3. Motorcycles do not need to follow the rules of the road. They can also drive on the side walks, run red lights, dodge between cars and never look when changing lanes. or they can make their own lane.

4. Cars don't necessarily stop for the red light if they think no cars are coming, which includes if there is a green walk sign.

5. Pedestrians never have the right of way, unless there is a sign that says you can walk (most of the time). Unfortunately, said signs are few and far between, so there is a lot of sprinting involved.

6. Only cross the street when there is no chance that anyone is coming towards you in a moving vehicle in the near future.

Good rules and lessons to learn before coming to see me in Seoul, which I hope many of you will be doing!

Also, random side note. Life as an English teacher is already cutting into my English speaking abilities. I wrote "right away" instead of "right of way" and couldn't remember the possessive form of "it" just while writing this blog. Tis a bit of a problem that hopefully will not continue to deteriorate!