Korean Job Discussion Forums

[zhu]

Hi guys.

Just bought my ticket from Beijing to Seoul for a brief travel assignment and am very anxious to get away from China for a few days. I've asked a few Korean friends what things are like in Seoul, but really I have no idea what to expect... No idea what things cost, no idea what the city's going to look like, how the people will be, what the bulgolgi or jopchae will taste like...

Then I suddenly remembered Dave's ESL forum and decided to drop a note here. Any thoughts? Bets? Warnings? Curses?

[Bibbitybop]

Don't get ripped off by staying in Western-style hotel. Find a yeogwan (love motel) for 30-40 USD a night.

Visit Itaewon, but don't spend more than one day/night there. Hongdae (Hongik University) area is fun, so is Sincheon. Gangnam sucks. Go to City Hall to watch the fading protests. Han River boat rides are nice, bring your own alcohol.

You can hit a lot of the touristy places, like palaces, by taking the Seoul City Bus Tour.

[WoBW]

Drink soju! It's cheap.

[seoulsucker]

Insadong is cool for touristy sights and trinkets.

Samcheongdong (near Gyungbukgung Palace) is a really cool place to walk around during the early evening. Great restaurants and art galleries.

Cheong-gye-chon (artificial stream) in Central Seoul isn't amazing, but is kind of a cool place to stroll and take pics.

For tech-heavy delights, check out Yongsan's electronics market.

Yeouido's river park is a cool place to spend a few hours.

Myeong-dong is a cool place to shop, beware of massive crowds.

Namdaemun market is a cool old school place to check things out.

The Dongmyo station flea market on weekends is pretty cool, too.

Hongdae and Shinchon are both cool for the younger nightlife crowd, Jongno is more for the older business crowd.

Gangnam sucks and is easily the most overrated neighborhood in Seoul.

Try to use the subway as much as possible, as some taxis are known to try and pull scams on tourists who can't speak a lick of Korean.

Hope this helps.

[Kiarell]

[jkelly80]

Insadong as noted is nice, touristy but nice. To the east (1km or so) is the Jongmyo Ancestral shrine. You can take a ped bridge north to Changdeok palace, and afterwards if you still feel like walking, there's the Bukchon area to the west and north of Changdeok. All of these are within 2km of each other.

[zhu]

Thanks for the replies.

If I say "yeogwan" can I find a "love hotel?" We're in a motel/hostel now. Prices have been about 50,000.

We drank 5 Cass beers and ate three small (complimentary?) bowls of popcorn for 20,000. Seems too high.

We'll go check out the university crowds tomorrow. That sounds like where we want to be. We want to meet and talk to people. Maybe they'll know where a yeogwan is. :0

Too bad it's raining today.

First impressions: Seoul seems much more civilized than Beijing. The bus driver from the airport was the friendliest Asian I've seen in years. People came up and helped us and spoke English to us. People seem to follow the driving laws. (Seriously China... just WAIT for the light, and everything will flow smoothely...)

All Beijing Starbucks locations have free WiFi, and I quite miss that. This motel is nice -- just to the right of Palace Hotel in Meyongdong.

If you know English and Chinese, the Korean language looks pretty easy to learn. Anyway have a comment on that?

[i4NI]

[mindmetoo]

[moosehead]

from Beijing to Seoul huh?

kinda like jumping from the frying pan into the fire? or maybe that would be vice versa?

[jvalmer]

[zhu]

What's with the plugs? Is electricity a protected commodity? Not so easy in Seoul to set up camp for an afternoon in a cafe and get some work done. Simple economics, I guess: in Beijing, Starbucks is trying to get people in to try the coffee, in Seoul, they're trying to get people out?

We're in our third motel/hostel now, still near Namdaemun. Going to check out Hondae tonight. In town until Wednesday night.

So, I've been reading this board. Koreans are xenophobic? Are we going to be able to even talk to some people? I guess we'll see.

[i4NI]

[i]

Go to What the Book in Itaewon, up the street from the Foreign Food Restaurant (near the Mosque) and get the Lonely Planet Seoul. It will save you lots of precious time.

[zhu]

Our friends from Daegu joined us in Seoul for the evening. They took us a little far from our hostel near Namdaemun to a bar/arts district. There were lots of bars and cafes and places to see theater and stuff. We went to a restaurant and had some sort of hotpot: octopus in a spicy red sauce. Wow. Amazing. Then we went to a jazz bar where a big band (20 people!) was playing (haven't seen that in a while), followed by a quartet headed by a singing, piano-playing Korean girl who I fell in love with after my third Hoegaarden.

Then we went to a cheaper bar to talk to people. Talked to an American guy with his girlfriend, and some Korean guys. Some sort of party. We accidentally offended the American when we talked to him about some posts on THIS message board: "We heard teachers here make about 2 million won, and most of them don't learn the language." Is this impolite? He got up and left. Well, sorry.

We're in Hongdae now. Lots of people walking around here. We had another type of hotpot, a big one, and the menu choices were: 2 people, 10,000; 3 people 12,500; 4 people; 15,000; 5 people, 17,500. The big flat wok/hotpot had red sauce, noodles, eggs, etc. Looked like a really basic food. But we loved it. We want to bring the model back to Korea town in Beijing.

We need to get out to an internet cafe to get a lot of our writing done. Finally found a Book Cafe (or something) about 500 meters from Hongdae.

Has anyone here been in Beijing? Isn't Seoul so much cooler?

Like to talk more to local singles. What's the best way to approach people? Hi? Hello? How are you? What's up? How old are you? I have money?