Travel at the Speed of Light!
Okay, Busan’s Light Rail Transit (also known as The Purple Line) isn’t exactly as fast as light — and I suppose that in this instance, “light” is used in the “not heavy” sense rather than “beams from the sun”. Whatever, it’s still a cool name for a cool ride.
The Light Rail connects Busan and nearby Gimhae, itself a sizable city of 500,000 people. It’s most useful as a direct connection to the airport, and actually the only time we’ve ever used it is when we were completely lost, after hopping on the wrong bus and ending up in a city that definitely wasn’t Busan.
This small above-ground train is conducted automatically and only opened in September, 2011. We sat in the very front, and had a great view of the scenery south of Busan.
Cool that it’s conducted automatically. Kind of like airport light rails. Actually, the station stop reminds me of airport light rails, too. But the travel over the town definitely reminds me of (and makes me nostalgic for) the above ground portions of the F-train in Brooklyn.