Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Marzipoo]

I will be moving to Jinju in about a week and would to get the opinions of folks that live there.

Specifically, I'd like to know the following from people who have lived there or visted: What are the good aspects of living in Jinju and what are the bad in your opinion?

[Louis VI]

The riverside park through the middle of the small city is great for jogging, biking, walking, the fall float festival is awesome, and the location relative to many great sites in the province is perfect (equidistant from Jiri national park, Namhae's Sangju beach, Tongyeong and Geoje - all reachable by bus in under an hour) not to mention only 50 minutes by quick, frequent, cheap bus from Busan (Sasang station, where one can hop on the subway and go anywhere in Busan, though from there it could take another hour just to cross the city!).

For Koreans, Jinju is a provincial wedding center because of its centrality and it is a supply place for hiking and camping trips to nearby Jiri mountain. It's also a historical site, the hilltop castle walls is a nice little park and museum place with good views of Jinju, a pleasant place to visit. The only real drawbacks are the many smokestacks of the silk industry, choking the air sometimes, and I guess during rush hour the three or four main roadways can get a bit choked with traffic.

There's a community of about 100 foreigners, many of whom go to the spaghetti restaurant downtown sometimes, Zico Rocco's, I believe, or something like that. Other foreign teachers are easy to talk to there, one can make friends. The city is small but big enough to have the supermarkets Emart and HomePlus (or is it LotteMart?). There's also a large indoor swimming pool, which is rare for a small city.

I highly recommend you bus it on weekends to explore other places from Jinju. Then it won't seem small at all. You will be amazed at how cheap local travel can be (motels in Busan at Sasang station, for instance, can be had for only 20,000 won to 25,000 won. Old love motels, sure, but they do the job. In fact, cheap motels can be found all over (Haeundae the cheapest I've found was 35,000 won). I lived in that province for 7 years and found weekend travel twice a month a very satisfying habit with minimum impact on my income.

Enjoy Gyeong-sang-nam-do!

[rickpidero]

Is it true that there is some sort of bull fight thing down there?

[Gaegeum2003]

There are a lot of gorgeous temples in the province, Gyeongsangnam-do, that you'll be living in. So it's great to get on a bus and explore the area.

For temple ideas, you can check out the following website:

http://daleskoreantempleadventures.blogspot.com/

[Marzipoo]

Thank you very much, Louis VI! That's just the type of input I was looking for!

[Weigookin74]

[shifter2009]

Its a really pretty town. Great for visiting. One of my best buddies lived there for a year. Spent a lot of weekends with my in Changwon and out on various other treks. Not a huge foreign community but the people who I have met from there are been real nice. I can confirm that the Italian spot downtown is real nice. Even have a live jazz band with some of the local foreigners play there a couple times a month. The lantern festival there is pretty nice as well. Might find yourself bored during the winter months when there is less to do out doors but its one of the prettier places I have been in Korea.

[Marzipoo]

[Gareth Y]

I've been in Jinju for the last 3 months and can say that it's lovely. There is a small, but friendly, English speaking crowd that took me until Paddy's day to track down and the city is nice compared to other I've travelled to. Jinju is great for going out to explore and those hotels are not as bad as some might think. From what I can make out, most of the night life is around the main university campus, I've been in and out of bars downtown and seen very few "round eye" types

[Lost500]

I visited once & certainly will again. Its a nice place, nice river & great fort.

Most Korean cities are the same, Jinju is differnt. The only other one I know of is Suwon.

Perhaps small (ish) but more character than many other places.

[ironjohn]

Can anyone recommend a cheap/clean motel in Jinju other than Versace? (That's the only one that comes up on tourist sites, and I'm worried the prices inflated because of that.)

Thanks, I'm familiar with Jinju, so you can reference landmarks, or the bus terminals, or whatever.

[bossface]

i stayed in the Movie Motel. it was pretty awesome, big TV, PC in the room, and it's right downtown. it was 40 a night, but i was there in high season so it may be less other times. its right by the bus station. cross the main road and walk to the first alley that parallels it. go left. it's on the left.

[ironjohn]

Thanks, it's appreciated. I assume you mean the 시외 inter-city bus terminal, right?

[bossface]

i think so. it was the bus terminal that's north of the river.

[R. S. Refugee]

Jinju is great. Zio Ricco's Italian Restaurant is very pleasant and they have live music there on the weekends (or at least used to back when I lived there; the owner, Pak Ji Won, is an excellent sax man).

There's a very pleasant bar called the Sound Garden in that district by Gyeongsang Nat'l. U. in Gajwa-dong by the railroad tracks. If I weren't in Seoul, there's no place else in Korea that I'd rather be than Jinju.

Enjoy.