New York City’s subway system smells almost exactly like Moscow’s Metro.  For the past two days as I’ve traveled the city’s arteries, the smell will occasionally strike me and trigger powerful sensory memories of riding the rails of the Russian capital.  Strangely, the Seoul subway doesn’t smell like either system.  In fact, it has no distinctive smell whatsoever that I can recall.  Fascinating.

I’m not talking here about the smell of the squid roasting stations or the delimajoo stands (Delimajoo, by the way, smell a lot more heavenly than they taste, in my opinion).  By the same Metro card (tokens no longer accepted), neither am I talking about the wafting fragrance of cheap wine and urine that may catch you with your guard down on occasion. What I’m talking about is the smell of the system as a whole, or what you’d have to describe as “That subway smell,” they way people talk about “That new car smell.” Warm axle grease accounts for much of the scent, but that alone doesn’t nearly cover it.  Perhaps it’s the smell of history.  

For my readers who live, or who have lived in Korea, what does the Seoul subway system smell like to you?