Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cetraveller]

I have applied to EPIK and the schools I am looking at are around Goseong, Changwon and Jinju City.
Can anyone tell me anything about living there?
Weather, Ex-pat community, schools, etc.
The area looks amazing and seems to have lots of outdoor activities, which I'm happy about. I dont care for bars or nightclubs.
Any information would be helpful, thanks

[gmarthews]

OK, well we just left Goseong after a year there.

You're right, the area is outstandingly gorgeous, you've got mountains and oceans. There aren't many real beaches though.

One thing you have to remember with Goseong-gun, is that it's the county, not the town. Goseong-eup is the town. Goseong Gun has a number of much smaller towns in it, along with Goseong town itself.

However much you like the countryside, I would seriously not recommend living anywhere but the main Goseong-eup. Goseong-eup is not a happeneing place, it has a Dunkin' Doughnuts, a Baskin Robbins, a couple of fairly poor pizza places and a Lotteria. It also has it's fair share of bars and kareoke rooms, PC bangs etc.

Goseong has a small and fairly cliquey expat group, not in a bad way, but it's not automatic that you will hang out with every expat that lives there, though they do have a once a month Friday night meet-up at a bar in the town.

Goseong has some of the best weather in Korea, it never freezes, so the winters are far milder than the rest of the country, even Jinju will have snow but Goseong wont.

The people are kind and friendly, they will stare but they will also smile.

Accommodation is very expensive in Goseong, due to the shipbuilding in the area. Because of this you will not get much for your money, most people I knew were living in utter shoe boxes and crappy ones at that.

I can't reiterate enough, you would be very unwise to take a job in Goseong-gun, it is imperative that you only consider living in Goseong-eup. The small surrounding towns and villages are poorly connected to anywhere else with very few facilities, there will not be a supermarket.
I say this as someone who requested to live in small-town Korea, who had already lived in small-town Korea in the past, I was still fairly horrified at how rural the towns in Goseong-gun are. Goseong-eup is livable, if you're really sure if you can handle being in the middle of nowhere, because it is. The pay-off is that it's beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful (not the actual town but the mountains and the sea and the nature) and you get to really live in Korea.

Jinju on the other hand has equally nice surrounding countryside and you're still not far from the ocean. Jinju has a good scene, the expat community is really fun and they have all mod-cons there, supermarkets, cinemas, shops, bars.

Personally, if you can, I'd go for Samcheon-po in Sacheon-gun, it's between Goseong and Jinju. Samcheon-po is right on the sea, with a beach, a bridge to Namhae, a great connection to Jinju, a big supermarket with western food in it, some expats. If I could do it all again I'd go for Samcheon-po.

[cetraveller]

Thank you for the information. I guess I am interviewing with the Province Dept of Ed. and they asked me to pick 3 schools. From what Ive read I wont know where I will be working until I get to Orientation. Reading your email was very helpful and confirmed some ideas I had.
Could you give me an idea of the distance between towns/areas - seems as though they are all fairly close by.

[gmarthews]

Goseong town is 40 mins away from Jinju and there is a very regular bus which runs between the two, however this bus stops running at 9pm so you can't really go out in Jinju without staying over.

If you live in Goseong county rather than the town then it will take much longer to get anywhere, you'll either have to take a bus into Goseong town and then catch another (if you're going in a Jinju direction) or hope that there are enough seats on the bus when it comes to your part of the county. For example the bus to Masan stops to pick up more passengers in Baedun but there are usually no seats left so you'd have to stand for the whole journey.

Changwon is probably about an hour from Goseong town, I never went there, but Goseong town is 40 mins from Masan and Masan is about 20 mins from Changwon.

Jinju has a train station but Goseong doesn't. I'm not sure about Changwon.

[cetraveller]

I just found out I am interviewing for Sancheon instead of Goseon - any thoughts on that area?

[gmarthews]

Do you mean Sacheon?

Sacheon-gun is between Goseong and Jinju, it has two main towns, Sacheon-eup and Samcheon-po. I mentioned Samcheon-po in my earlier post, it's really nice, it has a beach and a huge western supermarket. It is surrounded by countryside and just along the coast from Goseong-eup.
Sacheon-eup is kinda ok, I guess, much like Goseong-eup, there'd be no reason to go there if you didn't live there, it doesn't have a big supermarket but it does have a small Asia Mart where you can buy lentils and spices. It's very well connected to Jinju, it's practically in Jinju tbh, so you wouldn't have any issues with going out and meeting people.
The Jinju expats and the Sacheon expats are all pretty much the same group. I know someone who works in Sacheon and lives in Jinju, who is employed by EPIK, so it might be worth asking if you can do that, her public school put her in Jinju without her even asking, which IMO is pretty cool of them.

[shifter2009]

Of those 3 I'd go for Changwon. Jinju is beautiful and a great place for a visit but living there is kind of boring. Same goes for the rest. Changwon is actually now a city of over a million since it absorbed Masan and Jinhae. Lots of foreigners, many super markets, everything you need and still only 45 minutes from Busan.

[cetraveller]

No its Sancheong, further north. It looks like a small agricultural town. There is not much info on the place.

[gmarthews]

I've never been to Sancheong, I've driven past it on the bus, it's really near Jirisan mountain, it's so pretty round there but that's all I know about it.

[JD_Tiberius]

I'm in rural Gyeongnam, though not in that particular town and I can tell you that as a rule of thumb, the expat community is very close in smalltown Korea. Though you may find that many of them tend to be older, or married couples so they dont enjoy the bar scene, which hamstrings you with regard to meeting other people until you feel ok about staying on your lonesome in far away cities at night.