I live in the "country" in America, not a big city like New York City or Chicago. So, without a car, I'm pretty much stuck at home. All the more because my neighborhood is in the middle of nowhere. Before the house I live in, I used to live where I could easily walk to a plaza area with a drug store, coffee shop, pizza store, vet, and so on. Which I guess is a pretty big step up considering I don't live in a big city. But now that I no longer live close to such a plaza, I just find everything to be inconvenient.
But in Korea, even children as young as first graders can go to a convenience store or "snack food" place, and even school on foot. When I last visited Korea, I had a fun time just being outside, as long as I had money on me. There was a store next to my aunt's apartment building in Korea, and my siblings and I went there to buy ice cream all.the.time. It was awesome. Plus, I'm still a child at heart, so it's still fun buying things on my own, so it was fun just going out to buy milk because we were all out of milk. Oh the fun! Someone buy me a plane ticket to Korea.
I understand that Korea is a much smaller country than America, so everything is all "clumped" together so Koreans can walk to almost anywhere. On the other hand, America is a much larger country where everything is all spread out. But here's the ridiculous thing here - you can walk almost anywhere in Korea yet they have a transportation system made. Taxis are available and more widely used, there are public buses. Why doesn't the government spend some money on developing public transportation here?? Why does it always have to be like New York City in order to have public transportation widely available?
In my town, there is a public bus system, however, it's very limited. What I mean by that is, there aren't many bus stops so passengers cannot get to everywhere they need to conveniently, due to the fact that they'll have to walk more than necessary to reach their destination because the bus stops are far from them. In addition, if you're 18 and under, then you pretty much can't ride the bus without a parent or guardian. Like I said in the previous paragraph, children in Korea go anywhere without parents. Heck, I'm pretty sure children just go to amusement parks on their own with their friends. Okay, that was a bit of stretch, but I think I really may have heard something about that. There's not that kind of freedom for children here. I know that there is such thing as crime, so I'm not calling for rejection of parental supervision here, but think about it: teenagers are eager to start driving because they want to get to places without relying on their parents. Once teenagers get their drivers' license and their own car, they're almost never home, which is bad domestically, and it can lead to car accidents. But, if these teenagers had some leisure of getting to places on their own when they were younger, then they may not go so crazy for driving.
In addition, why can't there be little stores, convenience stores, here like in Korea? I'm not talking about gas stations, which, they're close to convenience stores in the stuff they sell minus the gas, but everything is so much more expensive in gas stations. The one place I can walk to from my house is gas station but that's kind of weird, "I'm going to walk to the gas station to buy some ice cream." And buying ice cream at the gas station is stressful, since one square of Kondike bar is $2.99. In America, the scale is like Wal-Mart/Target to like gas stations, and the in-between are the drug stores but they're so limited in number here also. I also noticed that drug store prices are also a bit on the pricey side. The struggle!! So having convenience stores would be nice, very nice.
Public transportation system and convenience stores, that's what I'm calling for in America.
(714)
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