Korean Job Discussion Forums

[optik404]

Anyone lived here before?

It seems you get more for the price, but the downside is it's low-income, crowded, etc. Don't really care about the low income honestly.

Anyways just looking for some feedback.

Thanks

[Seoulman69]

I lived near Sindaebang station which was one station along. I loved it. If you get a decent apartment and not too noisy neighbours it's a great area to live. Good links to Gangnam, Hongdae, Itaewon, and Seoul station. There is an Emart nearby and a Homeplus at Mullae station. The station after Sindaebang (can't remember the name) has a new department store which has decent shops.
The most important thing for me would be finding a good apartment with good neighbours.

[jammo]

I lived there for a year. what are you after? it isn't a beautiful place but everything is there and convenient. Emart, good gyms, coffee shops. Also, Chinatown isn't far away in Daerim (walkable) if you like that kind of thing

[Deja]

The building super where I was last time (<1 min. of walking from Guro Digital) was the only person in that area I found to be speaking any usable English That includes bank clerks (6 banks in that area in 5 minutes walking radius), IT folks (Kolong Science Valley hosts many companies, lots of which are IT), e-Mart folks...
So I find the area to be quite foreigner-unfriendly (there is a Best Western hotel there now, but other than that...)

I don't know what housing in Seoul costs in general (then and now), but my place there was 800$+expenses (net/utilities), now it is $1200 with all expenses for 65m2 (both cases). Is that cheap compared to rest of Seoul?
What pricing did you find?

[optik404]

I'm looking at Jeonsae. The price for a 7pyung Jeonsae near Hapjeong starts around 70mil and for that price you can get a 10pyung place in Guro.

[Deja]

70 mil? You're looking at buying a place there?

[fustiancorduroy]

[Deja]

I see.
Note that many buildings in this area are not just living apartments, but are business buildings with some apartments being rented for living quarters.

As for no-English, yes it is a problem. I lived in just a few places, and the more they speak any English the more likely they are to actually to be understood - as opposed to repeating 5000 words they already said quite fast, thinking that repeting something you don't know will magically make it so you know it

[fustiancorduroy]

[Deja]

Think of it what you will, but learning useful Korean will take considerable time. And if one has no knowledge of Korean, and wants to live in a certain area, it is quite wise to take into account how much that area is English language friendly.
For comparison, I used to live at Naksangdae some 10 years ago, and it was actually a better place back then than I find Guro-digital to be now with regards to English.
I used to live near Samseong for a short while several times over the years, but I think Samseong, Gangnam and Itaewon are quite an exception (and not likely to be a target of any ESL looking for a flat).
Why did I now learn Korean yet? Because until 2 years ago, it was always a short thing (several months), and I had no time then (back home the FIRST ever public Korean class just opened this February - go figure!). And this time - I finally started. Took me 2 weeks to find a school where the teacher speaks English and where the classes do not require applying several months in Advance (Seoul or Yonsei would be quite fine for me, the classes have excellent timings, but I can only apply for the autumn classes now )

1.200.000KRW is the number rather, currently much less than $1200, but that is with all the bills.

[Burndog]

Sorry...but I don't really think that you can be critical of people's English skills when you live in their country and don't know their language.

It's just not right.

[Deja]

I disagree. I can't if I don't WANT to learn their language, but I can if learning their language is a bigger problem then finding water in a desert.