Past Chinatown, turn a corner and a staircase stands before you like a wall. The 168 Stairs — Choryang’s emblem, and the place where you learn this district’s grammar of gradient with your own legs.
A vertical corridor of daily life
To hillside residents of the refugee years, these stairs were not scenery but a commute — the vertical corridor between homes above, dock work below, and the wells they climbed with water, several times a day Fact. The rest spots and lookouts along the flight are traces of that daily toil.
Exit the monorail, enter the Sky Way
The 8-seat monorail installed beside the stairs in 2016 was for a time Choryang’s icon, but repeated breakdowns and safety issues stopped it in June 2023, and it was later removed Fact. Since 11 March 2025 its place has been taken by the 12-seat “Choryang 168 Stairs Sky Way” incline elevator, free to ride Fact. Travellers still arrive looking for the monorail from old blog posts — it is the Sky Way now. If your legs allow, the best combination is stairs up, Sky Way down Estimate.