Korean Job Discussion Forums

[em]

There are a few cities, Masan and Kimpo for example that are not in my Lonely Planet Guide. I also find that LP does not give alternate spellings - I have gathered that Pusan and Busan must be the same place, but what about Chongju, Chungju, and Cheongju (the only one of the three that is actually listed in my LP)? Anyone got a good source for sorting this stuff out? I don't want to have to bug the forum everytime I am researching job possibilities.

Cheers.

[em]

And yes, I've used the SEARCH function. Kimpo gets mentioned alot but no real feedback. Ansong is not mentioned at all, either here or in LP! Yet there are jobs listed on the Korean Job Board all the time that say they are located in Ansong - does this place exist???

Would love a really really detailed website or travel guide.

Cheers.

[waterbaby]

I found the current version of the Lonely Planet - Korea to be completely useless. Grumble grumble grumble. I think I left it at my last apartment.

Anyway, I use a little free guidebook put out by the Korea National Tourism Organisation. I think it's really good. I have only given their website a quick glance.

One of the troubles you're probably experiencing with your frustrating search for info is the romanisation of Korean. Not much you can do about that except learn the Korean alphabet asap so you can spot those minor differences!

If you are interested in the Busan/Pusan area (yes, one and the same place!) then check out Pusanweb.

[crazylemongirl]

Bascially your problem stems from two things.

Lonely planet for seoul is ok for tourist stuff (that booklet Waterbaby mentioned is well worth getting my recuriter sent in my pack before I left and it's been an absolute god send) but actually living in country it's completly useless.

Also travel books cover interesting and cool areas not suburbia where, chances are, you will be living and working.

CLg

[Canuck]

LP is useless. I had the LP SE Asia on my trip in SE Asia and found the book to be pretty useless.The maps were useful, as well as some of the reccomended tourist sites, but practical information such as prices etc were completely useless. I also hate the layout of the books.

[Bulsajo]

You can't expect a book that gets revised every 2 to 3 years to keep up with price changes in Asia. You're expecting too much from it- it's the best at what it does- giving information to tourists and first-time travellers. Check out other guide books if you don't believe me.

[mokpochica]

There's a great handbook out there called Moon Handbooks South Korea by Robert Nilsen. It's a bit old (1997), but it's great for finding places to travel and has tons of information about Korea and all of the big (and not-so-big) tourist places. You can order it off of many online booksellers.

[Canuck]

[waterbaby]

The Lonely Planet Korea Guide IS terrible. I don't expect the information for prices to be current but I do expect it to help me find my way around. In Seoul for eg, it gives very bad directions to find a place it mentions. Tells you which station, which line to take but not which exit to take once you get there. You could take the wrong exit and end up miles from your destination. Grrrrr.

[Cedar]

Lonely Planet is general is pretty good, depending on the writer, even great. But the Korea book is the worst book I've seen in their line. I have contacted them about this, even sent writing samples, and pointed out literally hundreds of mistakes in a single chapter, but they have a policy of asking the previous book author to revise FIRST and then looking for another writer if he or she declines. As near as I can tell the LP Korea uses too much info from people who can't speak Korean and are just talking out the hole usually reserved for expelling excrement.

[The Lemon]

Cedar - you're speaking of the newer edition (2001-02)? It's co-written (for the first time, I think) by a Korean woman. Much of the bite and irony found in other LPs is now missing. Cities that earlier editions called uninteresting concrete jungles - an honest description - are now sold to the reader like a KNTO brochure would. There's nothing wrong with being positive, but the book does a disservice when it's TOO perky. It's misleading.

I like using the "dangers and annoyances" section, as well as the cultural issues section in my adult conversation classes. I understand that the book is meant to be a general overview, but my students insist much of the advice is flat-out wrong.

I think LP's Korea book is pretty far down in their food chain. I wouldn't be surprised to find out most of their readers are teachers rather than 2 week tourists. Korea, particularly outside Seoul, just doesn't get a lot of Western leisure visitors. Most bookstores in my home city don't even stock the Korea book. But if you want a Japan or China book you have whole shelves to choose from.

[Corvid]

Here's a link to a clickable map that I found to be kinda useful. Still, it's hard to find the towns since there's not a good index. I mean, how hard would it be to have a index of Korean place names that would show you which province each place was in?

Edit: This is even better. It's Korail's map. Why would you want to live in a small town that doesn't have a train station anyway? You'd never get to Seoul.

[Man of Changwon]

Lonely planet sucks. I went to Wando and in the Lonely Planet it said the ferry terminal was right in the centre of town(not the one to Jejudo) when in actually fact it was about 10 kilometres out of town. After that day I never looked at it again. The Moon handbook I picked up a few months ago rocks. It is a little bit old and you have to almost double the prices but the information in it is really good. I hope they put a new one out soon.

[em]

Thanks for the tips -I'll check out the map and the Moon's Handbook.

I just have one more thing to grumble about LP's guide, bear with me.

I bought a map so I could cross-reference it with Lonely Planet and hopefully find out something about the area at least of the city that I was researching. But both the city names and the province names were romanised so differently that they were virtually unrecognizable. How much trouble would it have been for LP to check out the different romanisations that are in currency and include them under the province and city titles that they decided to use?? Then I could use the province names to cross reference the city names and find out if similar names are the same place with different romanisations or two different places. At least it would be a start. I'm left wondering if Incheon and Ichon are the same places or two completely different places. Same with Changju, Chonju, and Cheonju. Not helpful at all. Drrrrrr. I'd always heard that LP guides were the Bible of travel but I have to admit that even if I were going to do a tour of Korea for leisure purposes I'd be really disappointed.

[merrilee]

Since there is no train in Changwon, how does one get from Changwon to Seoul, and how long does it take?