Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tideout]

I'm one of the scum who hangs out in Itaewon.

My fellow scum and I are most disturbed about is the decline of foreigners there in the last year or so. Most of us, including the truly oddball Koreans who frequent the area, are concerned with the influx of mainstream Koreans - that's what makes the linked article so funny. It's not the diversity that's attracting more Koreans there, it's the decline of waygookin there that makes it seem more "comfortable".

[furtakk]

I've only lived in the area for about a year and even in that short time, I've noticed a ton of development. The street behind the Hamilton was extended and a dozen or so places popped up. That mammoth pub/club/lounge (District?) popped up. On the south side down the alley with Wolfhound a ton of shops, restaurants, and cafes are constantly being built. There's also that really ugly building in front of the Hamilton.

The only real shady area left is the south east side where Hooker hill is and even that is not that bad compared to so called red light districts in other countries.

Anyhow, the nicer areas/places are definitely predominately Korean. Outside of the Irish pubs (3 Alley, Sam Ryans, etc) it feels like you're in Gangnam or Hongdae in terms of foreigner/Korean numbers.

[orosee]

I concur with furtakk and I'm happy to see that I'm not alone in my aesthetic appraisal of that thing that grew out of Hamilton's foot.

What I'm wondering is how will many of the local restaurants fare with an increasing number of Korean patrons? My personal observations are:

- a group of 4-6 foreigners going to e.g. 3AP or JR Pub will order 4-6 dishes (one dish per head, usually) and consume 1-3 liters of beer per head over the course of the meal (say 1-2 hours).

- a group of 4-6 Koreans (mostly girls plus one alibi guy) will order 1-2 dishes to be shared and one import beer per head and then consume this over the course of 3-4 hours, often leaving half of the food untouched and the glass still a third full when they finally release their table.

- Korean guys consume a little differently but often end up throwing up or pestering the other patrons because they can't understand that Jaegermeister is not the same as Soju. I'll never forget the night where a young Korean guy got up on his table at JR Pub, dropped his pants and started peeing into the dishes of his friends and nearby patrons (this is part of what makes Itaewon so great!).

So I'm just asking myself if a growing number of Korean visitors will threaten the business model of the existing pubs and restaurants. The "new" places have already adopted a Koreanized charge model, i.e. larger single dishes at comparatively high prices (think TGIF where a dish can be 20-30,000 Won but easily feeds 3-4 people).

I'm actually mostly annoyed by the Myeongdong-sized crowds during daulight hours that make it very cumbersome for me to descent from my perch (near IPB Hotel) to Itaewon's more interesting nether regions, especially since half of the pavement is now almost 24/7 allocated to the newest Middle East food vendor in town.

[markhan]

[nautilus]