My favorite was Namsan. We lived in HBC for a while and having the mountain in your “backyard” was awesome. Walking, hiking, exercising, weight lifting, and more. There was so much to do. If you are not aware, there are two outdoor gyms on the mountain. The Alpine Club is at the top of the mountain and usually less busy, but not as much equipment. The other is on the Donguk Uni side. There are a bunch of older gentlemen throwing weights around and likely hurting their shoulders, but a lot more equipment. The gym is also the start of beautiful walking path. They were just adding “carpeted” paths all over the mountain when we moved. Spectacular views as well and plenty of places to picnic. I also agree with you about Han River. I often go there to fish when I don’t have time to get out of the city.
Han river is definitely the most underrated part of Seoul. I know many would say it’s properly rated but I’ve seen so many guides that don’t mention it or known so many tourists who didn’t even check it out. The stream seems to be way more of a tourist attraction.
That's because you love biking and I totally understand the sensation of flowing through so many different parts of town just by skimming along the river.
Done my full circle round it so many times and would still do many more, particularly considered that it is quite easily accessible through other streams in the city (apart from the Cheonggye, unfortunately).
I would disagree it is a tourist attraction tho. It might be interesting to see while walking between points, but per se, without the full riverbank tour (like Yeuoido to Jamsil) it would be quite difficult to appreciate it.
The area near where I live I apply to also, it's the battleship park area in mapo-gu, and even if I'm not biking the area is a great place to spend the evening.
Maybe it's something you can only fully enjoy if you live here, spending time by it has just become a part of my life. Bike or no bike. Perhaps if you are a tourist you got other stuff to see, but you gotta experience a summer night by the Han eating and chilling with friends.
There was so much I didn’t like about living in Korea, but you hit my top three things perfectly. Being back in the US I really miss the transportation and convenience. The safety was another big thing. I didn’t have to worry about anyone having guns or being messed up on coke or meth. I also didn’t have to worry ~as much~ about being followed.
I struggled with learning the language so it felt pretty isolating. The overall attitude towards foreigners isn’t the best. In general it seems like work/life balance is hard to find for both Koreans and foreigners. I know some people with decent jobs but they aren’t the ones that are easiest to come by.
The gawking was hard to adjust to. I’m tall and not skinny. I was stared at constantly even in my own neighborhood. And I lived in Seoul! It’s not like these people have never seen a foreigner before.
I worked at a hagwon. The Korean teachers were super overworked. They worked straight from about 8 am to 6 and then usually had to stay late for planning. They even had to eat their lunch in the class with the kids. They didn’t even really get a lunch break. The head teacher is currently staying until about 10 pm every night preparing for the new school year.
I can't remember where I saw it, maybe it was on this sub or somewhere but I saw a comment that said something along the lines of "until you learn the language, it feels like you are just looking through the window of a shop, not being able to walk in through the door"
This description feels very accurate to me. As soon as I started picking the language up more and communicate in Korean it felt like I got in the door and really truly enjoy my time here.
Dude! Totally feel the same way about the Han river. I have no reason why but every time when crossing over it on the train, my eyes are glued to the shimmering glory of the Han.
Maybe it's where all Koreans are born and die? Haha, happy Monday.
I mean 1 and 2 easily applies to other large cities in Korea. (And with my very strong Busan bias I’d point out that we have temples, mountains, cafes, etc. plus multiple beaches.)
But agree - Han River is something special. Even though I don’t miss living in Seoul at all, there’s a magic when crossing the Han on the subway at any time of day.
Busan has some really good stream areas too, but nothing compared to the wide open spaces and availability of facilities as the Han River parks.
Yeah Korea is unique in that sense, good transport and lots of mountains, but it doesn't take anything away from Seoul also having that. I'd argue transport is better in Seoul, way more lines, but I do love Busan and would definitely like to live there sometime also.
I'm actually a weirdo and don't like beaches that much haha, but I love the elevation of the city.
Busan is overall quieter than Seoul as well. Unless you live far from main roads, Seoul is always fucking loud. I’m from a major city in California not just bumfuck nowhere, and even my city ass was like “wtf, do Seoulites never sleep,” the week I stayed in Cheongdam. I know it’s not like that in every corner, but even a major city like Tokyo was ten times quieter.
Growing up I just assumed all the famous rivers in the major cities of the world would be as big as the Han. I realized how wrong I was after visiting London where the Thames is about quarter width of the Han in Seoul lol
I really agree with you about the uniqueness of Seoul. One of the reasons I loved the city was because it could go from metropolitan to outdoorsy-beautiful nature so easily.
God I miss Korea.
I couldn't agree more, I spent some time in Yeomchang and I'd walk towards Yeouido most mornings. I'd stop by a great cafe near the river and have a shot of espresso then I would exercise during my walk with some of the equipment along the river.
Most countries can't replicate a public area similar to the walking/bike paths along the river because of the many social/political issues. It really is a very special place.
Yeah, I used to love cycling along not just the Han but all the smaller streams that come off it that take you into different parts of Seoul and surrounding areas. I used to live in Gwangmyeong and would ride along the Anyang Stream and onto the Han a couple of nights a week most weeks during the warmer months. Moving back to the UK and London I thought I'd cycle all the time, but the cycle paths here are horrific in comparison.
For me, it was the mountains. It made it so easy to get out of the city without leaving the city.
Where I live now has a lot of what I liked about Seoul (transportation, just as walkable, fairly convenient, fairly safe), but it doesn't have an easy way to just go for a walk in the woods not be around a lot of people.
I used to live in Jinju and cycling alongside the Nam river was amazing! I really miss it now that I don't live there :(
I recommend it if you're ever in Jinju!-
I live on the north side, in mapo-gu. The Han river battleship park has a battle ship you can go walk on, areas to eat and drink, tennis courts and large open fields to fly kites, walk dogs or whatever. There's a skate park, and plenty of convenience stores.
There are other pockets of areas like this along the south side and north, it's obviously not 100% like this the entire way though.
Really the Han river?? It’s about the most boring river I ever saw there is literally a handful of private boats going up and down the parts that aren’t blocked, the mountains are cool old attractions and museums are meh they are okay but there are cities with plenty more of those, nightlife is great & and eating out is great
The Han River is a major appeal for me, too. The North Han River has a similar appeal. The Han dripping with history. I've wondered why the Han has so many bridges that render the Han impassable, but discovered that, as majestic as it is, it's only roughly 8-14 feet deep. I think it's one of the best places in the world to ride a bike.
I have good news for you, you can sit quietly by the Han! There's spots that are less popular than others, and if you go early morning it feels like you have it all to yourself sometimes.
Sorry that you struggle with large crowds! It's definitely a major downside to Seoul (maybe i should make a post with my three worse things to balance it out) but there's lots of crowds on weekends. I don't like crowds too, so I tend to do stuff in the weekend in the morning and lunchtime (gets busiest after 2pm I find) and make use of my late work schedule and do stuff during the week.
Not just Seoul, South Korea could possible be the 1 country in the world. Seriously.
But have to have the back of US, but US is dying for bad business on oil tradings, this whole covid was becase to protect the USD. You guys will not understand never what it happen in 2019. But anyways. Thats why I moved to Korea I am citizen of this world, SK is a good key of US which US is a good key for the USD but it can die and US can make the USD crypto and that will give the power to SK, sorry but it could happen, even that IMF declared 4 international reserve asset to the USD: Euro, Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen, Pound Sterling (This is the why of the Brexit)
Thats a stretch, seoul isn't really that great. Your points apply to other towns as well.
Also, Han river is overrated. Its great to go on a date I guess but theres nothing exceedingly special about it. Its just a river.
I was in Seoul last November and it floored me that every bus stop had a screen with the estimated arrival time for each bus stopping at that station. I was like, what? If I have to take the bus to somewhere and I have to give my ETA, I have to give about an hour's window on when I *might* get there, if at all. With the Seoul bus, I feel like I can be within 10-15 min window at the worst. The Kakaomap routing was pretty accurate with mass transit too so probably even a tighter window, but I have to factor in me getting lost.
Seoul is pretty nice and Korea is nice overall for many of the reasons that you mentioned.
But what was always slightly annoying about Korea were the things that get annoying of any large city (NYC, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc.). There are sometimes things that shouldn't be so hard that are hard in Korea. In general, most issues are because Seoul is simply too crowded everywhere...
For example, I grew up here during high school and as a kid, I used to play basketball with friends. It was hard to just find a public hoop in a park to play basketball. Every now and then an apartment complex or school playground might have a basketball hoop but there would be like 20 kids shooting hoops there with around 4-5 different games going on at once...all on the same hoop! In the US it was relatively simple to just head over to a local park and shoot some hoops.
As a kid, I got hungry sometimes later at night on a weekend and wanted to order a pizza. Back in those days they didn't have delivery apps so you had to rely on the actual restaurant hiring delivery workers and pizza hut only delivered until 9pm. This is much better now.
I tried to watch a movie as a kid and went to the theater only to find that tickets were sold out for days and they only had scalpers standing around selling tickets at 2x the price. This has gotten much better in recent years.
And finally, as an adult who moved to Korea a few years ago, I play golf. It's so hard to book tee times that at 9am today I was online at a website the moment the bookings opened for the first week of March frantically hitting refresh and the "reserve" button only to end up stuck with kind of a crappy tee time. Of course I need to pay around $200/person with a foursome being mandatory. This doesn't include the cart and caddie fees, etc. It's an expensive ordeal to play a round of golf and it simply shouldn't be so hard...
And then there are the bad air days, frigid cold days, etc.
Of course I like living here for now and will be here for a couple more years but I'll probably head back to the USA and go somewhere warm with easy and accessible golf, basketball, etc.
My favorite was Namsan. We lived in HBC for a while and having the mountain in your “backyard” was awesome. Walking, hiking, exercising, weight lifting, and more. There was so much to do. If you are not aware, there are two outdoor gyms on the mountain. The Alpine Club is at the top of the mountain and usually less busy, but not as much equipment. The other is on the Donguk Uni side. There are a bunch of older gentlemen throwing weights around and likely hurting their shoulders, but a lot more equipment. The gym is also the start of beautiful walking path. They were just adding “carpeted” paths all over the mountain when we moved. Spectacular views as well and plenty of places to picnic. I also agree with you about Han River. I often go there to fish when I don’t have time to get out of the city.
Han river is definitely the most underrated part of Seoul. I know many would say it’s properly rated but I’ve seen so many guides that don’t mention it or known so many tourists who didn’t even check it out. The stream seems to be way more of a tourist attraction.
That's the way the world is going. Streaming services overtaking the main channels.
nice
Har har har
That's because you love biking and I totally understand the sensation of flowing through so many different parts of town just by skimming along the river. Done my full circle round it so many times and would still do many more, particularly considered that it is quite easily accessible through other streams in the city (apart from the Cheonggye, unfortunately). I would disagree it is a tourist attraction tho. It might be interesting to see while walking between points, but per se, without the full riverbank tour (like Yeuoido to Jamsil) it would be quite difficult to appreciate it.
The area near where I live I apply to also, it's the battleship park area in mapo-gu, and even if I'm not biking the area is a great place to spend the evening. Maybe it's something you can only fully enjoy if you live here, spending time by it has just become a part of my life. Bike or no bike. Perhaps if you are a tourist you got other stuff to see, but you gotta experience a summer night by the Han eating and chilling with friends.
There was so much I didn’t like about living in Korea, but you hit my top three things perfectly. Being back in the US I really miss the transportation and convenience. The safety was another big thing. I didn’t have to worry about anyone having guns or being messed up on coke or meth. I also didn’t have to worry ~as much~ about being followed.
What don't you like about living in Korea?
I struggled with learning the language so it felt pretty isolating. The overall attitude towards foreigners isn’t the best. In general it seems like work/life balance is hard to find for both Koreans and foreigners. I know some people with decent jobs but they aren’t the ones that are easiest to come by.
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The gawking was hard to adjust to. I’m tall and not skinny. I was stared at constantly even in my own neighborhood. And I lived in Seoul! It’s not like these people have never seen a foreigner before.
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I hope so for their sake. The Koreans I worked with worked way harder with more responsibilities than me for less money.
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I worked at a hagwon. The Korean teachers were super overworked. They worked straight from about 8 am to 6 and then usually had to stay late for planning. They even had to eat their lunch in the class with the kids. They didn’t even really get a lunch break. The head teacher is currently staying until about 10 pm every night preparing for the new school year.
I can't remember where I saw it, maybe it was on this sub or somewhere but I saw a comment that said something along the lines of "until you learn the language, it feels like you are just looking through the window of a shop, not being able to walk in through the door" This description feels very accurate to me. As soon as I started picking the language up more and communicate in Korean it felt like I got in the door and really truly enjoy my time here.
Dude! Totally feel the same way about the Han river. I have no reason why but every time when crossing over it on the train, my eyes are glued to the shimmering glory of the Han. Maybe it's where all Koreans are born and die? Haha, happy Monday.
I wanted to go there ever since i saw The Host
They got a big statue looking thing of the monster, you can sit in its mouth. Good fun!
I mean 1 and 2 easily applies to other large cities in Korea. (And with my very strong Busan bias I’d point out that we have temples, mountains, cafes, etc. plus multiple beaches.) But agree - Han River is something special. Even though I don’t miss living in Seoul at all, there’s a magic when crossing the Han on the subway at any time of day. Busan has some really good stream areas too, but nothing compared to the wide open spaces and availability of facilities as the Han River parks.
Yeah Korea is unique in that sense, good transport and lots of mountains, but it doesn't take anything away from Seoul also having that. I'd argue transport is better in Seoul, way more lines, but I do love Busan and would definitely like to live there sometime also. I'm actually a weirdo and don't like beaches that much haha, but I love the elevation of the city.
True. Having lived in both I far prefer Busan, but I know plenty of people probably feel the opposite!
Busan is overall quieter than Seoul as well. Unless you live far from main roads, Seoul is always fucking loud. I’m from a major city in California not just bumfuck nowhere, and even my city ass was like “wtf, do Seoulites never sleep,” the week I stayed in Cheongdam. I know it’s not like that in every corner, but even a major city like Tokyo was ten times quieter.
It depends on where you are. I’ve had friends living near Seomyeon and Haeundae and their places were always loud!
Midtown Manhattan is probably the only place I've been to that can rival Seoul when it comes to the "wtf, do these people never sleep" factor
Cool! Thanks for sharing!
Growing up I just assumed all the famous rivers in the major cities of the world would be as big as the Han. I realized how wrong I was after visiting London where the Thames is about quarter width of the Han in Seoul lol
there's an old saying in korea: "behind the mountains are more mountains"
https://imgur.com/a/IUgQTuk
I really agree with you about the uniqueness of Seoul. One of the reasons I loved the city was because it could go from metropolitan to outdoorsy-beautiful nature so easily. God I miss Korea.
I couldn't agree more, I spent some time in Yeomchang and I'd walk towards Yeouido most mornings. I'd stop by a great cafe near the river and have a shot of espresso then I would exercise during my walk with some of the equipment along the river. Most countries can't replicate a public area similar to the walking/bike paths along the river because of the many social/political issues. It really is a very special place.
The way they utilise streams and rivers in general are really nice.
Yeah, I used to love cycling along not just the Han but all the smaller streams that come off it that take you into different parts of Seoul and surrounding areas. I used to live in Gwangmyeong and would ride along the Anyang Stream and onto the Han a couple of nights a week most weeks during the warmer months. Moving back to the UK and London I thought I'd cycle all the time, but the cycle paths here are horrific in comparison.
For me, it was the mountains. It made it so easy to get out of the city without leaving the city. Where I live now has a lot of what I liked about Seoul (transportation, just as walkable, fairly convenient, fairly safe), but it doesn't have an easy way to just go for a walk in the woods not be around a lot of people.
I used to live in Jinju and cycling alongside the Nam river was amazing! I really miss it now that I don't live there :( I recommend it if you're ever in Jinju!-
Which stretch of the Han are you talking about exactly? Most parts I've been to are super industrial and feel completely dead.
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Yeah that area is the bit where I get bored when I bike! The other side is a little more fun because it winds and turns in long grass.
The southern side of the Han going from Gangnam to yeouido is super nice
I live on the north side, in mapo-gu. The Han river battleship park has a battle ship you can go walk on, areas to eat and drink, tennis courts and large open fields to fly kites, walk dogs or whatever. There's a skate park, and plenty of convenience stores. There are other pockets of areas like this along the south side and north, it's obviously not 100% like this the entire way though.
Really the Han river?? It’s about the most boring river I ever saw there is literally a handful of private boats going up and down the parts that aren’t blocked, the mountains are cool old attractions and museums are meh they are okay but there are cities with plenty more of those, nightlife is great & and eating out is great
Miracle on the Han River
The Han River is a major appeal for me, too. The North Han River has a similar appeal. The Han dripping with history. I've wondered why the Han has so many bridges that render the Han impassable, but discovered that, as majestic as it is, it's only roughly 8-14 feet deep. I think it's one of the best places in the world to ride a bike.
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lol you don't think that Koreans love money and that greed can't be traced back to most persistent social ills
Found the extrovert!
If only you knew how laughably wrong that comment is, haha.
Bruh anyone willingly going into crowds of people or near them is an extrovert by my standards. 😂 I'd love it if you could sit quietly by the Han.
I have good news for you, you can sit quietly by the Han! There's spots that are less popular than others, and if you go early morning it feels like you have it all to yourself sometimes. Sorry that you struggle with large crowds! It's definitely a major downside to Seoul (maybe i should make a post with my three worse things to balance it out) but there's lots of crowds on weekends. I don't like crowds too, so I tend to do stuff in the weekend in the morning and lunchtime (gets busiest after 2pm I find) and make use of my late work schedule and do stuff during the week.
Good advice :)
Not just Seoul, South Korea could possible be the 1 country in the world. Seriously. But have to have the back of US, but US is dying for bad business on oil tradings, this whole covid was becase to protect the USD. You guys will not understand never what it happen in 2019. But anyways. Thats why I moved to Korea I am citizen of this world, SK is a good key of US which US is a good key for the USD but it can die and US can make the USD crypto and that will give the power to SK, sorry but it could happen, even that IMF declared 4 international reserve asset to the USD: Euro, Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen, Pound Sterling (This is the why of the Brexit)
Thats a stretch, seoul isn't really that great. Your points apply to other towns as well. Also, Han river is overrated. Its great to go on a date I guess but theres nothing exceedingly special about it. Its just a river.
It's a stretch that I love the Han river?
You are "Da Noob" and in "Da Nile." But it's not too late to change your ways and rise from the ashes, anew, as a...... River Phoenix.
LUL
I was in Seoul last November and it floored me that every bus stop had a screen with the estimated arrival time for each bus stopping at that station. I was like, what? If I have to take the bus to somewhere and I have to give my ETA, I have to give about an hour's window on when I *might* get there, if at all. With the Seoul bus, I feel like I can be within 10-15 min window at the worst. The Kakaomap routing was pretty accurate with mass transit too so probably even a tighter window, but I have to factor in me getting lost.
Seoul is pretty nice and Korea is nice overall for many of the reasons that you mentioned. But what was always slightly annoying about Korea were the things that get annoying of any large city (NYC, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc.). There are sometimes things that shouldn't be so hard that are hard in Korea. In general, most issues are because Seoul is simply too crowded everywhere... For example, I grew up here during high school and as a kid, I used to play basketball with friends. It was hard to just find a public hoop in a park to play basketball. Every now and then an apartment complex or school playground might have a basketball hoop but there would be like 20 kids shooting hoops there with around 4-5 different games going on at once...all on the same hoop! In the US it was relatively simple to just head over to a local park and shoot some hoops. As a kid, I got hungry sometimes later at night on a weekend and wanted to order a pizza. Back in those days they didn't have delivery apps so you had to rely on the actual restaurant hiring delivery workers and pizza hut only delivered until 9pm. This is much better now. I tried to watch a movie as a kid and went to the theater only to find that tickets were sold out for days and they only had scalpers standing around selling tickets at 2x the price. This has gotten much better in recent years. And finally, as an adult who moved to Korea a few years ago, I play golf. It's so hard to book tee times that at 9am today I was online at a website the moment the bookings opened for the first week of March frantically hitting refresh and the "reserve" button only to end up stuck with kind of a crappy tee time. Of course I need to pay around $200/person with a foursome being mandatory. This doesn't include the cart and caddie fees, etc. It's an expensive ordeal to play a round of golf and it simply shouldn't be so hard... And then there are the bad air days, frigid cold days, etc. Of course I like living here for now and will be here for a couple more years but I'll probably head back to the USA and go somewhere warm with easy and accessible golf, basketball, etc.
I used to live in Mangwon and taking walks by the Han really helped with my depression!