How Much Has Seoul Changed In The Last 15 Years?
Seoul from 15 years ago seen through the variety show Infinite Challenge and things that have changed.
Source: MBC Entertainment
There is a popular saying in Korea that goes, "In 10 years, even the mountains will change." This means that 10 years is long enough for rivers and mountains to change!
Why are we bringing this up? Well, today we will show you a comparison between Seoul 15 years ago to Seoul today!
Some of you may be wondering why specifically 15 years ago?
Source: MBC Entertainment
This is because we watched the 2007 Seoul Tour Special episode from the hit Korean variety show Infinite Challenge yesterday on YouTube.
Infinite Challenge is a legendary variety show in Korea. It has been loved by Koreans for 13 long years.
In this episode, the members of the show must carry out missions of travelling around Seoul but are limited to a transportation card with only 5,000 won!
Looking back at how Seoul used to look through this show was really fascinating.
So, grab a snack, and let's explore the changes together.
Mobile Phones
Source: MBC Entertainment
The first thing that caught our eye was the old flip phones that they used! The first generation of the iPhone was released in June 2007, and it entered Korea in 2009.
This means that there were no smartphones in 2007!
Below you can see the many different types of phones that were used back then. There were many different designs, in contrast to most smartphones, which all carry a very similar design.
These days, smartphones are usually single-sided with full-touch screens. But in 2007, there were so many different designs such as flip phones, slide phones, and modified slide phones!
Source: Internet Community
We remember when popular celebrities would model for different mobile phones whenever there was a new release.
It was fun to name each mobile phone after a celebrity, or to listen to songs that the celebrities released in collaboration with the phone companies!
For example, 2PM released " Nori For You " when they were the face of Samsung's Nori phone. BIG BANG and 2NE! released " LOLLIPOP " for LG's LOLLIPOP phone.
Girls Generation and f(x), each released their own versions of " Chocolate Love" for LG's Chocolate Phone.
Random fact, but the first phone one of our editors purchased was in 2008. It was the 'mini skirt phone.' 😁 It was a slide phone, but you could touch the screen so they remember their friends being really fascinated by it, as it was quite rare.
Digital Cameras
Another thing that was fun about the show was seeing people carrying around digital cameras!
Nowadays, people don't really carry their cameras since smartphones have great camera quality. However, the quality of cameras that were attached to phones back then was awful!
For example, the most popular phone in Korea was the Go Ara Phone, which had 1.3 megapixels. Considering now the iPhone 12 has 12 megapixels, you can imagine the difference.
Source: MBC Entertainment
Since the show Infinite Challenge was so huge at the time, you can catch citizens taking photos as the members passed by.
While most people take photos with their mobile phones now, there some that take photos with digital cameras.
Source: MBC Entertainment
Now that we think about it, we also used to carry a digital camera when we went on family trips back then. We could've taken photos on our phones, but because of its low quality, we used to carry a digital camera to capture memories.
Going to a photo studio and printing them out was also quite memorable and fun!
Paper Maps
Source: MBC Entertainment
As we said earlier, the mission of this show was to go to a destination point somewhere in Seoul only using public transportation. At the time, the members were also famous entertainers.
So they were having a difficult time trying to get to the destinations since they probably were used to travelling by car, with their managers driving.
Like the photo above, they were trying to find their way by looking at a map of the subway lines. It felt so weird to see them do that as nowadays, we can just search it up conveniently on our smartphones!
Source: MBC Entertainment
It looked so complicated and an inconvenience to carry around. The member in the photo also got annoyed as he was trying to fold it back into his pocket. 😂
Of course, that was the norm before smartphones. But, now that 15 years have passed and we live in a digital world, I wonder how they did it back then!
These days, everyone uses online maps! Google Maps is quite well known, but most Koreans use Kakao Maps or Naver Maps.
Since those two were developed in Korea, it seems that they are the most optimized for Koreans to use. We are really bad with direction so these maps are essential whenever we leave home.
We would have lost our way so many times if it weren't for our smartphones!
Headphones With Wires
Source: MBC Entertainment
Can you see those headphones with wires? There are still people that use those earphones, but these days, it's more common to see people wearing wireless earphones!
Source: the qoo
When the wireless earphones first came out, we thought it was really weird, but now we see people use them everywhere and it's pretty cool.
Reading The Newspaper
Source: MBC Entertainment
It was only until we watched this scene that this memory of people reading newspapers came back to us!
Back then, many people read newspapers in the subway. There were a lot of free newspapers for people to read at the entrance of the subway.
People used to leave their newspapers on the seats when they were done, so others can take them and read them after.
Source: Yonhap News
But these days, since there are endless things you can do on your phone, everyone just stares at their phones.
We used to do that too but after seeing our screen time records, we started to feel really bad about ourselves. So we try to bring a book to read even though we always end up on our phones again.😅
No Screen Doors
Source: MBC Entertainment
As we were watching this scene, we felt like something was missing. Then we noticed. There are no screen doors!
The first screen door installed in Seoul was in 2006, and since then they have installed them everywhere.
But in 2007 when this show was broadcasted, there were no screen doors as it was more common for subways to not have them yet.
Nowadays, screen doors are installed in most subway stations as shown in the photo above. This is to prevent incidents such as accidental falls or even suicides.
You can definitely feel a sense of security with the screen doors, right?
Subway Tickets
Source: MBC Entertainment
In the past, people used to purchase tickets like this and insert them at the gate, instead of scanning them as we do now.
After 2009, paper tickets were completely abolished and a new, upgraded version of subway gates appeared!
Now it has changed to scanning your transportation card at the gates. The show was aired when both paper tickets and electronic tickets were being used.
We remember when we were a child, we used to get confused about whether we should insert or scan our tickets.
Mom-And-Pop Store
Do you see the stores behind Yoo Jae-Suk? Those stores are mom-and-pop stores (구멍가게) in Korea.
It's a very small supermarket operated by individuals. What was fascinating while watching the video was that there were so many of these stores in the middle of Seoul.
Nowadays, it's really hard to find these types of stores.
After we did some research, we found that as of 2017, in a span of 10 years, 30,000 mom-and-pop stores disappeared!
Instead, franchise convenience stores have grown at an alarming rate. There are so many in Korea that you can find two convenience stores per block.
Source: Maeil Business, Inside
Of course, there were also convenience stores back then. However, since people were much more familiar with the mom-and-pop stores in their neighborhood, they went there to shop more.
We remember as a child, we used to go to one in front of our house to buy ice cream.
Source: Electronic Times, Kakaopay blog
However, since the service and products of convenience stores have continued to improve, these mom-and-pop stores have disappeared and convenience stores have completely taken over!
Source: Kim Hyu-rim's Postcard on Naver
These days convenience stores are extremely convenient and great, but there are times when we miss the vibes of a mom-and-pop store.
Because it was usually run independently by an older lady or man, they would sometimes give extra food for regulars or discounts just out of the kindness of their hearts.
The Seoul Skyline
The photo above shows the scenery of Seoul. Can you notice a slight difference?
The left is a photo of the Seoul landscape from the show in 2007 and the right is a photo taken recently.
In 2007, there weren't many high-rise buildings as there are now. And most of the buildings were just apartments!
But recently, a lot of high-rise buildings have been built. Can you see that Korea has developed at a rapid rate over the past 15 years?
Similarities
We looked at a lot of differences so far, but it's also fun to spot some similarities!
Source: ST culture
This is Dogguk University exit 3. The place you see in the photo is the Jangchung Gymnasium.
Many idols such as Monster X, iKON, and Iowa also performed here. It's still the same besides a little change from renovations.
Source: Hyatt Hotel
This is the Hyatt Hotel in Namsan. This is a 5-star hotel that opened in 1978! The photo on the left is quite poor in quality, but you can still see that it looks very similar.
Source: Naver blog (청조잡문)
This is the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon located near exit 4. It is a landmark in Itaewon that you can spot immediately when you walk out of the station.
Since it opened in 1973, it has been standing its ground in Itaewon for a really long time.😊
We compared Seoul 15 years ago through the show Infinite Challenge.
What are your thoughts? You can really feel that there has been a massive change, right?
If any of you are curious about the episode, you can watch it here! 😊
