christmas in korea

with all the threads about traveling to places in europe and asia, i was surprised to find that there weren't any threads about korea, save for a few about teaching english. is korea just some shithole nobody wants to visit?

anyway, i'm going there over christmas break with my gf and we need stuff to do. you guys have any recommendations?

There's a massive thread about Korea over at SuFu. The only downside is that you have to go to SuFu.

I think a better question to ask is what you want to do with your girlfriend there. We can provide very, VERY generic suggestions, but we can't give you any good information unless you actually give us an idea of what you want to do. I mean, I could tell you something like this:

Drink a lot of soju and crappy Cass/Hite/Max beer. Of those three, I like Max the best, but they're all kind of ******. Go to NRBs, hit the clubs. All the places worth visiting for nightlife are in Gangnam (especially Apgujeong) or near Hongdae/Sinchon (college areas). The most popular club in the summer was Eden, but I don't know if that's changed now. Take taxis at night because the subway closes between 12-12:30. They're pretty cheap regardless. If you don't know Korean, look for one with free interpretation. Also, make sure the driver starts the meter.

Stuff like that, but I'm pretty sure that's not exactly what you're looking for.

Why do you hate your family?

Originally Posted by nahneun

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I think a better question to ask is what you want to do with your girlfriend there. We can provide very, VERY generic suggestions, but we can't give you any good information unless you actually give us an idea of what you want to do.
i don't know anything about korea, but i wanna do the stuff that you usually do when you travel. like experience music, art, culture, food, places of natural beauty, and stuff like that. clubbing too. i'll be staying at a place in daegu, so we can probably get to busan pretty easily. i wanna go to seoul for a couple of days. is the DMZ worth visiting? is there some more rustic area that we can retreat to after seoul?

Originally Posted by texas_jack

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Why do you hate your family?

i don't have a family

Traditional Christmas in Korea: get small gift for gf, dinner and booze her, and then try to boan her at a love motel (which you have to book weeks in advance)

Originally Posted by impolyt_one

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Traditional Christmas in Korea: get small gift for gf, dinner and booze her, and then try to boan her at a love motel (which you have to book weeks in advance)

lol I was going to post this but I decided against this in the end hahahahahahaha win

also total +1000000000000000000000000

yeah, I hope OP doesn't think I'm joking about that.

I also don't know what to do for Christmas this year, and Christmas is also my birthday and my girl will want to take me out for dinner or something, so that makes it doubly hard. I already go out and enjoy nice dinners and drinks with my lady so it's like picking amongst the same, I have no idea where I want to go.

Originally Posted by impolyt_one

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yeah, I hope OP doesn't think I'm joking about that.
i know you're not bs-ing because i asked my gf about that costco minced onion **** and she totally confirmed it. gross! for people scratching their heads: http://www.styleforum.net/showpost.p...&postcount=700

Originally Posted by bach

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i know you're not bs-ing because i asked my gf about that costco minced onion **** and she totally confirmed it. gross! for people scratching their heads: http://www.styleforum.net/showpost.p...&postcount=700
I love Korea and all, but Koreans should not make any food besides Korean food. They just **** up everything else. Sometimes, you'll end up with something good, but 99% of the time, it's garbage. If you want any other food, you have to find something run by a foreigner. There's a decent hakata ramen near Sangsu (also somewhat near Hongdae), but it's not amazing. The place is also run by a Japanese guy.

For the day of, December 25th, it's better to do quiet stuff. Christmas is not a national holiday, and it depends on the company, but almost all salaried workers get Christmas day off, so things like ski resorts and big public areas will be packed to the brim by the afternoon. Anything couple-like, you will probably need to reserve if you don't want to sit and pick at fish soup and drink soju on the night of Christmas, and Christmas Eve will be booked out as well.
note* You don't really want to go skiing in Korea anyway, it's always a clusterfuck and people always get hurt. In fact, if you run into one of the thousands of newbies littering the slope, it's becoming common practice now to sue each other for a standard 50 grand in damages because of skiing run-ins here. It's a like warzone out there.

Some people take time off between the 24th and the 2nd of January, as in America, but by far and large, people are at work on the 24th, and back at work on the 26th. Everything will be open on the 25th as well, so food and entertainment are not going to be amiss, it's just that when people get out of even a single day of work here, **** hits the fan and everywhere you want to go is where they already are, packed in like sardines. If you weren't claustrophobic before, you would be then.

No one talks about Christmas in Korea, because it's an imported holiday for the worship of Jesus' B-day and crass commercialism. Like impolyt and naehun wrote, Christmas isn't a national holiday, and armed with one extra day off from work (if they have the day off at all), most Koreans are going to pack into already overcrowded shopping malls or overbook most decent restaurants before getting back to the daily grind. Basically, outside of some Christmas-themed lighting installations here and there, and multiple performances of Handel's Messiah, don't expect much pomp surrounding Christmas even in Seoul.

That said, there's fun **** to do in Seoul whether its Christmas or not:

• check out the palaces (esp. Kyungbok, Changdeok, and Deoksu)
  
• go through theme-y neighborhoods like Samchong-dong/ Gahoe-dong (art and food), Insa-dong (arts and crafts), Hongdae (clubs and japanese otaku ****), the park area near Apgujeong (star-watching)
  
• visit the Leeum Museum, or if you've got time, the Seoul Museum of Art, the Seoul Arts Center, or the National Museum of Art
  
• go hiking (if there's no snow) along Bukhansan and look down on the Blue House
  
• there might be some decent concerts or festivals going on at the time, and you can always go clubbing around Gangnam or get drunk with socially awkward ex-pats in Itaewon
  
• check out the DMZ (which is kind of creepy, actually, but might be the most decked out place for Christmas in all Korea) and the Korean War museum, if you're a war history buff or like the kitsch of anti-commie agitprop
  
• go shopping in overcrowded shopping malls like Lotte, Hyundai, and Sinsaegae and then compare it to cramped "traditional" markets like the Namdaemun and Dondaemun sijang(s)
  
• wander around all day, get lost, eat lots of strange food, get drunk on soju, try to score some off your gf in a love motel (as has been covered)

But...that's Seoul. I assume that your gf is Korean or Korean-American (or Korean-[insert nationality]), which is why you're spending Christmas in Korea. I then assume that she has parents/ relatives in freezing-ass Daegu, which is why you're staying there instead of Seoul over Christmas. I don't know what you could possibly do for an extended period of time in Daegu during the winter except drink soju and hope your gf has cool relatives who speak English well. Instead, try and get outside of Daegu as much as possible (either drive around with one of her cool relatives or bring an international drivers license and rent a car together), and check out the former Silla capital in Gyeongju, drive along the eastern coast stopping at some of the small towns for seafood, etc. Most of the interesting things you can do in Daegu or Busan - eat sashimi, visit the beach on a blustery day, check out Buddhist temples and historical sites - you can do better and cheaper in the Gyeongsang Province countryside. Busan can be a fun city, imho, but if your time is short, I recommend visiting Seoul for your city-fix, and checking out some of the rural sites around Daegu for everything else.

Here's a link to some of the "theme courses" you can check out in Daegu: http://english.daegu.go.kr/cms/cms.asp?Menu=490

Originally Posted by Humperdink

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No one talks about Christmas in Korea, because it's an imported holiday for the worship of Jesus' B-day and crass commercialism. Like impolyt and naehun wrote, Christmas isn't a national holiday, and armed with one extra day off from work (if they have the day off at all), most Koreans are going to pack into already overcrowded shopping malls or overbook most decent restaurants before getting back to the daily grind. Basically, outside of some Christmas-themed lighting installations here and there, and multiple performances of Handel's Messiah, don't expect much pomp surrounding Christmas even in Seoul.

That said, there's fun **** to do in Seoul whether its Christmas or not:

• check out the palaces (esp. Kyungbok, Changdeok, and Deoksu)
  
• go through theme-y neighborhoods like Samchong-dong/ Gahoe-dong (art and food), Insa-dong (arts and crafts), Hongdae (clubs and japanese otaku ****), the park area near Apgujeong (star-watching)
  
• visit the Leeum Museum, or if you've got time, the Seoul Museum of Art, the Seoul Arts Center, or the National Museum of Art
  
• go hiking (if there's no snow) along Bukhansan and look down on the Blue House
  
• there might be some decent concerts or festivals going on at the time, and you can always go clubbing around Gangnam or get drunk with socially awkward ex-pats in Itaewon
  
• check out the DMZ (which is kind of creepy, actually, but might be the most decked out place for Christmas in all Korea) and the Korean War museum, if you're a war history buff or like the kitsch of anti-commie agitprop
  
• go shopping in overcrowded shopping malls like Lotte, Hyundai, and Sinsaegae and then compare it to cramped "traditional" markets like the Namdaemun and Dondaemun sijang(s)
  
• wander around all day, get lost, eat lots of strange food, get drunk on soju, try to score some off your gf in a love motel (as has been covered)

But...that's Seoul. I assume that your gf is Korean or Korean-American (or Korean-[insert nationality]), which is why you're spending Christmas in Korea. I then assume that she has parents/ relatives in freezing-ass Daegu, which is why you're staying there instead of Seoul over Christmas. I don't know what you could possibly do for an extended period of time in Daegu during the winter except drink soju and hope your gf has cool relatives who speak English well. Instead, try and get outside of Daegu as much as possible (either drive around with one of her cool relatives or bring an international drivers license and rent a car together), and check out the former Silla capital in Gyeongju, drive along the eastern coast stopping at some of the small towns for seafood, etc. Most of the interesting things you can do in Daegu or Busan - eat sashimi, visit the beach on a blustery day, check out Buddhist temples and historical sites - you can do better and cheaper in the Gyeongsang Province countryside. Busan can be a fun city, imho, but if your time is short, I recommend visiting Seoul for your city-fix, and checking out some of the rural sites around Daegu for everything else.

Here's a link to some of the "theme courses" you can check out in Daegu: http://english.daegu.go.kr/cms/cms.asp?Menu=490

these are good suggestions, thanks.

my gf is actually of german extraction. she's over there teaching english. let's not get into that.

Originally Posted by bach

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is korea just some shithole nobody wants to visit?

**** you yankee asshole


I remember last time I was leaving Korea, I saw a couple of kids (maybe 18-19) taking pictures of their kicks in the underground area of the airport with a DSLR and a giant lense. It looked so absurd I was sure they posted on the souper.