It’s been a long and eventful day. Church in the morning, followed by a trip up to Seoul to see Eric’s wedding. So I’ll just give you a few random thoughts that struck me today.
It’s been a while since I’ve been to Seoul for anything other than biking. The last two times were a drive up to do the Ganghwado Fortresses ride last month, and the up, over, and back century ride last weekend. So I’m not entirely used to getting there (other than to Eric’s apartment for any rides we’ve done. Come to think of it, two of the last three times I’ve gone have been to Eric’s apartment).
So today, Eric was getting married in Gangnam, which meant figuring out how to get there. The subway would take me fairly close. But it also stops frequently, and the total trip just on the subway would’ve been an hour and forty minutes. There’s also the bus to Nambu terminal, then a short subway ride. But that meant going to the bus terminal and getting the tickets, and the Nambu bus can be crowded sometimes. Then I remembered the 5438 — a bus that stops just a few blocks from my place and doesn’t stop again until it gets to Gangnam. Its second stop was just a few blocks from the hotel in which the wedding was being held, and the whole ride took just about an hour. Very good. Very convenient. Same for the return ride. And of course the good thing about taking the bus is the bus lane on the expressway. It’s a bit satisfying to be passing all of the cars at near standstill as we zipped along.
I’m always happy to find things like this. It’ll make trips to Seoul quite easy in the future — especially to that area of the city. The bus stops quite close to a subway station, so it’s basically an express into Seoul from which I can then go to a lot of other places.
And speaking of Seoul…it’s big. I saw a lot of people today, most of whom I will never see again. Sure, it’s obvious, but maybe next time you go to a place like it, think about this — the people you see all got up that morning just like you. They made their plans, they thought about what to wear and then they got dressed. Most of them brushed their teeth. They have their friends, and you’ll never know them either. And when the day ends, they’re just like you. They go home. They eat. They watch TV. They go to bed.
Here’s why I think this is so amazing. It’s like the world is filled with billions of parallel universes — entire lifetimes that are so much the same, but completely disconnected from yours. It would be so interesting to be dropped into one of them every so often, and with a little imagination, a trip to Seoul can do that for you. I like watching the people and thinking such things.
In addition to the watching of people, I spent a lot of today listening to the book Leviathan Wakes, which is the first in the series upon which The Expanse is based. I’ve watched The Expanse a few times now on Amazon. I love it. My favorite sci-fi series. You would think that listening to the books wouldn’t help much, but it does. It fleshes things out even more, and when season six (the last) comes out next year, I’ll probably go back again and start from the beginning, this time knowing a lot more of why things were being done. And the thing is, I believe there are nine books in the series, so they’re going to try to cram four books into the last season to finish it up. I don’t like that approach, so it’ll be really nice to have get the whole story.
So these are the random thoughts that today brought about. It was a good day.
