If you can’t climb stairs, navigating Seoul will require some patience. The ADA is pretty much unique to the USA, and Korea seems to be at the other extreme of the accessibility spectrum. Almost every bathroom has a step-up, and many doors have steps at the threshold for no apparent reason. Most residences have a step after the entryway separating areas where shoes can be worn.
But if physical limitations don’t keep you from climbing stairs, you will encounter them daily in Seoul. It is a very hilly city. If you look at a map, there are many green areas that are undeveloped. Mainly because they were too hilly to build upon. It is also a vertical city. Maybe not as vertically built up as NYC or Tokyo, but the medium level of vertical density means that many storefronts, restaurants, coffee shops, pool halls, etc, are located on the 2nd, 3rd, even 4th floors and accessible to the public via stairs. Skyscrapers always have plenty of elevators. 4 or 6 story buildings might not.
There are also public stairs left, right, and center. Every subway station has at least 25 steps to enter or exit, and some have many, many more. Many of the mountains have stairs leading up to the peaks. The stairs might seem like a disadvantage, but they have many benefits: forced workout everyday no matter how lazy you are, overall an efficient form of transit, keeps the crazy motorbike drivers away from pedestrian areas, breaks up long walks, and generally easier than very steep hills without stairs.
www.ktwon.com 