Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hotwire]

Am moving to Gumi late Sept.

1. Visited Gumi to see a girl I used to hang out with 6 years ago. there was a lotte mart dept store I think and a cinema. What's it like now? I need my cinema. What is there to do in Gumi?

2. How long to Downtown Daegu from Gumi by bus / train and what times do the busses / trains going from Daegu back to Gumi end?

3. Best places to hangout to meet other foriegners in Daegu at the weekend (I'd ask the same for Gumi but I'm assuming there arent many foriegners there, right?)

4. Cool things to do and see around both Gumi and Daegu. I like mountains, movies, books, good foriegn food and meeting other people to hang out with.

5. Where are the expat bars in Daegu and their names please? Are there any foriegn food stores and restaurants like there are in Daejeon with Indian, chinese, SE Asian foods? E-Mart / homeplusses...? English bookstores...?

6. Where's the closest public library to Gumi? Korean libraries usually have a good dvd selection and viewing area, free wifi etc...

Anything else you want to add will all be considered and appreciated useful or not, negative or positive...

Thanks in advance

HW

[oldfatfarang]

There's a well patroned westerner bar called Waegook Cook. I've never been - but everyone else goes.

Plenty of westerners in Gumi (hagwon and PS. Heaps of south africans around.

Gumi to Daegu by train = 30 mins. Last train Daegu to Gumi about 4am and first starts about 6am (could be wrong about this). Plenty of buses but the train station is in downtown Daegu (where the 'nightlife' is.

Gumi has a Lotte Mart, Home plus and E Mart and small Donga Dept store. Nearest Lotte Mart is in the Daegu train station.

Gumi has a huge red light district (near the bus station).

Gumi has a Lotte Cinema and a CGV cinema.

Hiking on Gumeo San (very steep and gets boring after a few trips).

Most people (K&E) looking for fun go to Daegu. Gumi is just another boring provincial city (with a few electronic factories thrown in).

[captain kirk]

One of the presidents was from Gumi so with that connection Gumi got lots of industry. I like the way the city is laid out (it feels more like a town because it's so open, and not crowded). Perpendicular to the river is a wide boulevard from the bridge to downtown which has Emart and Lotte. A lot of the factories (electronics) are around there. I lived in Ulsan too and it reminds me of there; wide river, electronics factories (though Ulsan has the sea and heavy industry as well). In Gumi it felt like a boomtown. Buses owned by electronic companies would pick up, like a school bus picking up kids, twenty-something women. They can make really good money assembling electronics, esp after year one. I saw the same thing in Hsinchu, Taiwan (lots of electronics there). Gumi has a sense of not putting on airs, being pretentious, because it's a factory town. Not heavy industry, but subtle with electronics.

Approaching the river from downtown on the boulevard you can see a flat-topped mounthill with a cliff facing all along near the top. This is an ancient fort used repeatedly over hundreds/thousands of years. Once hiked up, and precipitously peering over the cliff, it reminded me of Australia with the forest rolling forward and away from the base. I was walking the ridge the other side of the cliffs and top, down a bit (this was in Dec, no snow yet), and a Taekwondo team in their outfits came jogging along, spread out fifty yards apart. Kids, the oldest an highschool girl. Fighting! I guess their trainer, middle aged, just said 'go up that mounthill and run around'.

If you're on a motorbike there are two roads to Daegu, an old secondary and a more modern secondary. It's about 20min or so. Looking around, you will find that the mounthills are verging on mountains which stomp up to right on the verge of the city, peering down. On the way to Daegu you'll pass Palgonsan park which is high mounthills with a Kyongju era temple and cablecar to the peak. The hectic sprawl of Daegu is close and Gumi is poised withdrawn from that.

Going east along the river is Waegwon (about 20min)and going north gets up to Andong. Kyongju, going east, isn't that far either. Because Gumi is detached from hectic Daegu one can venture off in these other directions without having to troll thru traffic to the edge of town. On a motorbike I recall that it was sometimes an hour just to get to the edge heading out of Daegu.

There are wide grassy flats by the river which aren't built on because that land may flood. Some guys fly RC planes there. Sports teams hack around. It's serene by the river, lots of space.

Yes there's that steep mountain (cable car there) next to Gumi. Apparently there's an ancient fort and I saw pottery shards and building stones but it's a long way up. If I was an invader I'd put a month aside just to get in shape to attack those folks way up there, and even then I'd demand overtime. The cable car is really cool. It drops you where there's a cave people hid in during invasions, near a temple perched on the cliff, and it's on the trail up to the top so it saves walking. The cable car starts at a sort of 'amusement town' with restaurants and a Viking ride.

There is the whiff of plastic in the air from the electronics industry, and lots of housedust from that stuff descending.

[Hotwire]

So I'm getting the feel that Gumi isn't too bad a joint then?

And how does Daegu stack up against other non Seoul / Busan cities such as Ilsan, Daejeon for expat life?

[InDaGu]

[Hotwire]

Cool. Downtown means the area around the train station right?

[InDaGu]

[Hotwire]

I'm arriving around 25th Sept.

Anyone willing to take in a newb / stray under their wing and meet up for a coffee or beer, shout me a pm.

[Hotwire]

Are there any theatre groups in Daegu?

I know of Seoul Players, wondering if there are any Daegu groups.

[Epik_Teacher]

Lived there in 2001-2002, it was OK back then. I'm sure it's grown LOTS since then. But I lived out in the boonies, it's probably not the boonies anymore where I was.

[Hotwire]

Will pop into Daegu today and spend the night. Get a nice lunch, see a flick and then hit a few bars around 11pm.

So Comune bar will be checked out. any other reccomendations? any decent post bar nightclubs or bars with dancefloors where I can meet women?

[PianoMan2]

I was there in 2005. Waegook Cook was the big expat hangout. They're really the only place in town that serves western food. They also organize a lot of parties, trips, sports, etc for the expat community.
http://www.waegookcook.com

Other than that, you might be hard pressed to find things to do.

[Hotwire]

Thanks for the waeygook cook link. Will be paying a visit for sure!

[sonicmatt]

i get messages on facebook all the time about waygooks trips and i wish more foreign bars would do the things that they do. ive thought about making the trek down there for some of the trips they plan especially the beach parties.

[Captain Marlow]

personally, i'd choose to live in daegu and then commute to gumi when you feel like it... daegu isn't a huge city, but it's nice to have quite a few comforts of back home available to me before/after work and in walking distance...

i live near kyungbook university, so everything is an easy distance away (downtown, costco, homeplus, emart, indian restaurants and other foreign restaurants, expat bars, etc)...

and if you are moving to gumi for a girl, i'd definitely think twice (but i'm no one to give love advice)...

good luck no matter where you end up, and if you need any suggestions on things to do/places to go in daegu p.m. me