[distantaidenn]

I’m American but was living in Seoul at the time.

A couple friends and I took an overnight trip to Busan. We were having lunch at a small restaurant, and my friend asks the staff if she can order takeout and have it sent back to her home in Seoul. Mind you Busan to Seoul is 325km.

This was mind-boggling to me. I asked her, “How long is that gonna take to get there?!” She was puzzled, looked at me and said, “It’ll be there later tonight.” She then laughed and continued, “Hey, this is Korea!”

The delivery network of small highly developed countries is simply amazing.

[propogandist]

Wow... how does this sort of delivery network work? Is it inexpensive enough to manage food takeout? I've never heard of takeout food delivery across 100s of kilometers, especially same day! I really need to visit Korea

[distantaidenn]

The food was already sealed and safe for travel. Can't recall clearly, but I think it was some dried fish or sausage dish. So it was just a manner of getting it delivered. She ordered a lot and didn't want the hassle of us lugging it with us during the remainder of our day.

Still, impressive nonetheless.

[wongarsu]

The German Railway used to deliver packages with the regular high speed rail system. You bring it to the train, it gets put in a cargo room, and you arrange for someone to pick it up at the destination station.

It was expensive of course since it was the fastest way to move stuff (trains are faster than cars), but I imagine that at cost it would be cheap enough for takeout.

[kaybe]

They still have a courier service:

https://www.bahn.de/p/view/angebot/zusatzticket/ic_kurier.sh...

Delivery can also be done to Paris, Vienna, Basel and Amsterdam along with the ICE trains travelling there.

Prices I'm shown ~0,22 EUR/km, 33€ to and from the station each and a surcharge of 33€ for night or holiday transport, so ~300€ for crossing the country, and it takes less than a day. Maybe there are rich people out there paying that much for takeout?