Korean Job Discussion Forums

[goingtokorea]

Hi,

I have been offered a job in Yongin, and wanted to know a bit more about it, is there anybody who has lived / lives there? I have tried doing web searches and looking in guide books etc, but the only thing I can find is about the Everland theme park. Any info would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[cunning_stunt]

Don't do it man . There's nothing to do and the locals are mostly a$$holes . Well , I am anyway .

It is closish to suwon and gangnam in seoul.......yongin is a big area...so really depends where exactly in yongin you will be . You could do worse I suppose ...you could be moving ot Australia for example . I'll be happy to answer your questions if you have any ....

[mrsquirrel]

What area of Yongin
?

[goingtokorea]

Jukjun-dong, Suji-gu

[cunning_stunt]

Suji is not bad . Only been there a few times ...everyone thought I was obnoxious and wanted nothing to do with me , which is promising and a good sign it's a decent , civilised place .

[goingtokorea]

ok, decent and civilised is a good start i guess. Is there any night life? stuff to do on weekend? How long does it take to get to downtown Seoul, can you get back easily enough after a night out in Seoul?

[Fredbob]

Depends on your age and what you're looking for. There's a Yongin expat group on Facebook that could probably help you out, you're close to Seohyun and Jeongja, which are upscale areas. Buses to Seoul and Suwon are plentiful but all those places are far enough away (around an hour, depending on what time you leave) that it's pretty easy to save money here, if that's what you want. There's a decent number of universities reasonably close, which can be good or bad.

I live about a 10 minute drive south of there and I have gotten zero isht from anyone, after the first week, I stopped even getting the overly long stare when I'm with my Korean wife. If you live in a place that's newer, that could change, places that are older are a little more congenial IMHO, because it's reasonably close to Seoul, seeing a foreigner isn't that shocking, but, maybe because there aren't many foreigners around we haven't gotten a bad rap yet, so the evil eye and talking about you while sitting next to you doesn't seem to happen as much as the being overly friendly and polite. I've actually had drunk college kids apologize to me for being too loud in a hof, TWICE . And the cute thing is that the younger kids usually look at me in a mystified way and smile, and don't yell "HIYEEEE" Granted, I'm usually dressed in a suit, am told that I look around 30, and I look more like a businessman than a backpacker AND this is a pretty conservative area, so that might play into it, and I party around here with groups of Koreans, speaking 30-70% Korean, instead of mixed or predominantly foreign groups. I'll say this though, maybe not the best place for a single guy shooting for girls in the mid to lower twenties, might be interesting if you're looking for 25-35 year old single, professional girls, as far as I can tell, when it comes to dating. But you can get a taxi back from the party area in Seohyun for 15,000 won or less. (Not sure about from Suwon though).
Getting back from Seoul, it's cheaper to stay at a love motel or jimjilbang/sauna and take the bus home, buses start around 6, but honestly, partying in Korea can often last until sunrise if you make some decent friends. Probably 40-50,000 won and the driver won't be pleased to take you there and won't know his way around. Local taxi drivers are generally pretty cool, except for the one, who I'm pretty sure was a little drunk, who sang along with a Pink Floyd cd while driving me home.

Stuff to do, hiking, mountains, Buddhist temples, there's a waygookin friendly kendo club which I've heard is pretty cool. Also a department store, a kind of outlet mall and a few Emarts where you can get a decent selection of western food.

Warnings,
There's a decent chance that you will be the only waygookin at your hagwon and that it will be a start up, because this is a developing area. That involves a whole host of potential problems, but potential benefits as well.
If you are in smaller area, you will get a reputation more quickly than you can imagine, example, when I moved here a few months ago, when it was warm enough for the windows to be open, I heard my neighbors talking about me, trying to figure out if I was a solider because of my short hair and the fact that I have some Army dufflebags amongst my gear, they were also hypothesizing about my "girlfriend". The next day, I went to the closest 7-11 with my wife and told her to tell the adjoshi there that we are married and to apologize for my terrible Korean, which I want to practice with him whenever I would come there. I also lied and told her to tell him that I'm only an English teacher part-time. Fcuked if I didn't hear almost every detail through the window a few days later The area I live in isn't that small, the point is that you have to realize that if you are in a smaller, town rather than city type of area, people will watch you and talk about you and that in turn is the difference between dealing with crap from drunk guys with little gotchu syndromes, or having the manager of the place telling them your cool and having them settle down or even apologize.

Hope that helps, Good Luck

[DCJames]

[cunning_stunt]

[goingtokorea]

Thanks Fredbob, I'm 23, and a girl, so not much chance i'll be looking to pick up girls I'm happy enough to be a little way out of Seoul in order to save a bit, but at the same time I want to be able to go out and socialize rather than feeling i'm stuck in the middle of nowhere. At the moment I don't speak any Korean really, but I'm determined to learn at least the basics before I arrive, and hopefully once I've made a few friends over there I'll get into before too long. Would there be somewhere in Yongin for me to take classes?

[SuperFly]

So what happens when you get to Korea...are you going to change your user id to: Nowiminkorea, or goingonvacationsoon?

[patongpanda]

Hi, Juk-jun is in Suji. I am 5 minutes away. It's administratively part of Yongin City but it's really a separate area. I've never been to Yongin City - it's quite a long bus journey.

The nearer areas of interest are Suji, Bundang, Seoul and Suwon.

It's 50 minutes on the bus to Hannam in Seoul. I think the buses stop around midnight after that you'd have to get a taxi.

If you have any q's let me know.

[spliff]

[DCJames]

[spliff]

I live in Yong-In at Everland and have gotten bus rides into Gangnam at 25 mins.