Hoo Kang | Living with Passion and Faith

I’m finishing up a four year adventure in Korea. A lot has happened in these past four years. I originally came through a poker game with God. Life’s funny. I leave with a Korean wife. God does amazing things. This is a late-post since I’ve been in the US for over a month.

Without further ado:

10. Public Transportation – For 1,000 won (approximately 1 US dollar) you can travel anywhere in Seoul. The Seoul Public Transit system is amazing, both the subways and bus system. I enjoyed using’s Seouls BMW (Bus, Metro, and Walking.)
9. High Speed Internet / High Speed WiBro – The whole country is on a fiber optic LAN. I got 100MBPS to my house, both up and down with servers within Korea. They’ve already started planning to get the whole country on a Gigabit system. It only costs 30,000 ($30 bucks) a month for it too. I used to download large files in a few seconds.
8. Customer Service in General – Overall customer service at Family Restaurants, Hotels, Toll Gates, and Korean Government offices tend to be very friendly and do their best to serve you quickly and respectfully.
7. Fast Delivery – I would imagine if I lived in New York it would be similar.  Whenever I ordered anything, food would show up 10-15minutes, stuff I bought online would show up the next day and sometimes even the same day.
6. Ice Cream – I don’t know what it is, but the packaged ice cream tastes better. My favorite is the “Sun-lai-im” by Lotte, it’s in the blue packages with a plastic cap, I felt stupid having them, but they tasted so good.
5. Schwarma / Kebabs (Itaewon Area) -  I enjoy the Itaewon area for its diversity, you can share and mingle with people from all over the world. I thoroughly enjoyed the authentic food from each nation, however my favorite was Petra in Itaewon. Their schwarmas are mouth watering.
4. No tips - You don’t have to tip anywhere and people won’t give you attitude if you don’t. I thoroughly enjoyed paying a flat price for food being delivered and eating at dine-in restaurants.
3. Always something to do - Because the city is huge there is always something going on and you can participate in.
2. Security – Seoul is a huge city, but there is very little violent crime. You never hear gunshots and you can walk around the city at 3 AM and you’ll feel safe.
1. The People – I’ll miss the “jung”, it’s like loyalty/love mushed together. When Koreans make friends with you as long as you keep in touch you’ll be friends for life. Sure there are flaws in the culture and nobody is perfect, but overall I enjoyed my four and a half years living in Seoul.

If you ever get a chance I highly encourage you to check out the land of the morning calm.