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Adobe
Joined: 02 Jul 2007
Location: SK
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 Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 8:41 pm Post subject: Life in Gonju? |
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Is there anybody who has any experience in Gonju? I've been placed at 3middle schools and one elementary school in this city/town, and am just looking to get a basic idea of whats what.
Where are the local expat hangouts/western style resturants?
Is there a gym/fitness club?
How easy is it to catch busses to the bigger cities;Seoul/Busan/Daejon or even Cheonan on the weekend?
Any constructive advice appreciated...
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Axiom
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:49 am Post subject: Re: Life in Gonju? |
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| Adobe wrote: |
Is there anybody who has any experience in Gonju? I've been placed at 3middle schools and one elementary school in this city/town, and am just looking to get a basic idea of whats what.
Where are the local expat hangouts/western style resturants?
Is there a gym/fitness club?
How easy is it to catch busses to the bigger cities;Seoul/Busan/Daejon or even Cheonan on the weekend?
Any constructive advice appreciated...
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Try searching Gongju or Kongju |
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sunhelen
Joined: 18 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 6:37 am Post subject: |
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It takes from twenty minutes to half and hour to get from Gongju to Daejeon by bus. There are both intercity and local buses. Cheonan is farther away, but again I think there are both intercity and local buses. I have visited Gongju a couple of times to go to the National Museum and other historical sites. There is a small movie theater, and I think one foreigner bar.
Gongju is small so you might want to get out of town fairly often, but there is enough there that you won't be desperate to leave every weekend.
Right now I am living in Asan which is smaller with fewer services, and we have two swimming pools and there is a free gym over one of the dong offices. There is a local bus that runs from a suburb of Gongju to the city of Asan. This suburb also has its own intercity bus terminal. |
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DaeSung
Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Location: ����
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 6:55 am Post subject: |
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Kongju/Gongju is great ^^
I lived there while I was a missionary. Its a cool place, but probably not for everyone. Its pretty small, as far as Korean cities go. Daejeon isn't far by bus as the previous poster said. I'd love to live there again. But yeah you really don't have many options for American food (well last time i was there in 2002 there was a McDonalds but i've heard its gone now ㅠㅠ)
The thing i liked about Kongju was that it just felt like a nice place, has that small town feeling to it. So if thats not for you then you might want to try some where else ^^ |
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Michelle
Joined: 18 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:56 pm Post subject: Re: Life in Gongju? |
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| Adobe wrote: |
Is there anybody who has any experience in Gonju? I've been placed at 3middle schools and one elementary school in this city/town, and am just looking to get a basic idea of whats what.
Where are the local expat hangouts/western style resturants?
Is there a gym/fitness club?
How easy is it to catch busses to the bigger cities;Seoul/Busan/Daejon or even Cheonan on the weekend?
Any constructive advice appreciated...
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Hi There,
I initially came to Kongju. I have friends who did the public school bit there and all say it's good. You might need to do a fair amount of preperation yourself at school however this is improving as more teachers have come through. Kongju is not big and not on the train line or anything. It is a traditional centre of Baekjae culture. It is seperated by the gum river into two parts. It is fairly spread out so using the local bus is helpful. Also prices for general goods seem a little inflated, I don't think many people buy clothes and stuff there. This is improving also however.
A lot of people get out of there on the weekend but the Singing room, if you like it is always an option for friday nights. There is a bar or two that serve mixed drinks.
Where are the local expat hangouts/western style resturants?
Changes from time to time but the teachers in town often meet up at Lotteria or at the university gate.
B bar is a common place and also a place called podak. Mainly because of the drinks. People don't always like the music at B bar and at Podak they sometime play a sports game on the TV rather then music which is a bit distracting, unless you enjoy it!
The skylounge restaurant is at the top of a building serves some western food and has a good view. Lotteria, Popeyes, Dunkin donuts and baskins are the only fast food options but they have bakeries. To be fair across the bridge they have both Mr Pizza and Pizza hut. They have a couple of coffe places. In haus is my favorite.
Is there a gym/fitness club?
Sure there are one or two, but not so sure about Air conditioning in the summertime. Swimming pool? Likely not except at the university and I found it expensive I think you have to go when they don;t have classes.. Bath houses are around.
How easy is it to catch busses to the bigger cities;
Seoul: Goes once every half hour express to Kangnam terminal. One and a half hours unless the road is blocked..pretty quick. This includes weekends although peak hour highay traffic will affect it on Friday Saturday nights.
Busan: Sure there is a bus but not sure how many would take it as to get to pusan you could save time by getting the KTX train from Daejeon. I don't know of a service from Kongju to be honest, may have to go to the bus terminal in Daejeon.
Daejon or even Cheonan on the weekend?
Daejeon is 40 minutes and easily doable. To save time get off the bus in Yuseong and get a subway, don't bother going all the way to Daejeon as the bus takes a long time and traffic blocks it.
Cheonan, I think it might be possible to get a regular bus from the intercity bus terminal the one that also has the bus going to Daejeon.
The Seoul bus station is seperate from the intercity (other city) bus station but these two stations are beside each other.
Incedentally, there is not direct access to incheon airport, you will need to change buses.
G'luck |
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