I was bored a couple weeks ago and posted this on a Starcraft site, but I realized it would probably be more useful for you poker players, as you guys have lots of $.


I received a PM from a poster here on TL.net encouraging me to write more about Korea today that inspired me to write something. I had an epiphany today and that is I write best when I'm hungover and can peice together my mangled thoughts. Here I sit, feeling like ****, ready to go.

Whenever someone I know through StarCraft comes to Korea, I try to take them for good food and then a fun night of drinking. I even did this for people I never really knew online and I never knew why...until now. It just hit me. I wasn't doing this out of the goodness of my heart of course, who the hell would do that. Imagine yourself sitting in the master seat of a VIP room of the best night club in Seoul with one or two fellow teamliquid.net users. A hot girl gets ushered into the room and sat next to one of the guys and they spend a minute or two trying to conversate in ****ed up english while I sit there quietly and patiently sipping on a watered-down whiskey + beer bomb (One of the true beauties of Korea). The girl ends up getting frustrated after a minute or two and makes some bull**** excuse then gets up to leave the room and I can just say "Wait a second..." In Korean and the girl will instantly be so interested in the fact that I speak her language and I can tell her to come sit down next to me. Do you know how ****ing good that feels? It feels damn good. That moment. That orgasmic moment in time is why I take these guys out. But unfortunately for myself and most people reading this, I probably don't know you, so here is my guide of how to spend your time on a vacation to Korea. What to do and what not to do. Warning: None of this is applicable if you're broke. This is a guide for young males only but I guess females could get something out of it.

Seoul is a pretty simple city, not that big, and very densely populated. The city itself is virtually cut in half by the Han river and both halves have very different characteristics. The north side is called Kangbok and it is the dirty side. Everything is less classy, less fancy, the appartments there are pretty run down and you see way less pretty girls on the streets. If you have a tight budget you can get a by week or by month appartment for very cheap and without a deposit. This is what the scum of the earth (english teachers in korea) do most of the time. I'm not saying I'm any better than them in the scum department, but wow. Do you know how many peice of **** twenty-four to thirty year old dudes I have met in Korea that reside here endlessly raking in their two to two and a half grand a month salaries teaching ****ing dumbed down ******ed english to Korean kids who's dumb **** parents think that if their kid pass some ****ing bull**** english test they are going to get in a good school in a country that has no good schools? Alot of them. From awkward walks of life in America they come and their confidence shoots through the roof as they make on average one thousand dollars more a month than the average Korean college graduate and they probably work half as many hours. On the weekends they go pimp their hot **** in the dirty clubs of Kangbok trying their hardest to pick up as many ugly sluts as they can, oblivious to the fact that the girls are ugly cause they can't tell asians apart and oblivious to the fact that they can't dance, they aren't cool, and they look like mother ****ing ******s. Not that picking up ugly girls is a bad thing, fat girls need loving too, but don't strut your **** around the streets as if you're a rockstar and don't brag to everyone about how many five foot tall stubby nosed skanks you banged. No one gives a ****. Gotta love it when you're walking down the street and theres an english teacher walking with a girl, thinking he's awesome, then he sees a fellow non-korean such as myself and we make eye contact and he gives me an "Oh **** a white person! He must know what I'm up to!" glance then breaks eye contact immediately. I live for those moments too. Anyways, Kangbok is where they stay most of the time. You, on the other hand, are going to stay in Kangnam. Locate yourself in one of these four areas that are all very close to eachother. Yeoksamdong, Kangnam, Apgujungdong, or Samsungdong. Your appartment might require a decent sized deposit, or you can get a full-option apartment that comes with everything that you can rent by day even if you want. I know a good place in Apgu called HumantouchStarville that has that, a bit pricy though. Anyways all housing can be researched online and you can find something that fits your needs. Get a phone too. You need a phone that works here.

You won't have to cross the river during your adventure if luck is on your side unless you plan on going to Walker Hill casino to play poker because it's currently the only casino with poker in Korea. Yeoksam, Kangnam, and Apgujeong are all you need. You are not going waste a day of your short life going to the famous demilitarized zone at the northern tip of South Korea. I have never been there myself but I can tell you without a doubt it's going to be a boring waste of a day and you're not even going to get any good pictures out of it. Look mom, it's me next to a fence and a mine field, Weeee! You are not going to go visit some temple. You are not going to go hiking on some Korean mountains. You're not going to go walk around city hall. You're not going to go watch Korean traditional dance. You're not going to go to some ******ed Norebang(singing room) to experience Korean 'culture.' You're going to experience the delicious gogi and abundant sexy bars of Yeoksamdong, the lively bars and hip hop clubs of Kangnam, the expensive food shopping and night clubbing of Apgujungdong, and occassionally the food movies shopping and Starcraft of Samsungdong. If you're lucky you might run into some english teachers in any of these areas and get to punch some teeth.

Yeoksamdong is my personal favorite area in Seoul and coincidentally happens to be where I live. Though there are plenty of really good Gogi Jibs (meat restaurants basically) anywhere, Yeoksamdong offers alot of really good ones ranging from franchise to small family owned. When you eat in Korea don't eat any of the seafood, it's all bull****. Also, I hear all the time newbies here saying "Wow that bulgogi/samgyupsal/dwejigalbi is soo good I love it!" Bulgogi is just cow meat prepared a certain way, Samgyupsal is fatty pig meat, Dwejigalbi is pig meat. These three a very commonly eaten and are not that good. They are good compared to a McDonalds hamburger maybe, but definitely not better than a McMuffin. Don't waste your time trying any of these meats. Galbi-sal is what you should order and lots of it. Galbi-sal is cow meat cut into smallish chunky slices and prepared in a certain way. It is very very good. Dip that **** in some Ssamjang (korean red sauce it's good) and wrap it up in some Yachae(vegitables/leaves etc), eat it with rice and a DenjangChigae (Korean spicy soup with vegetables in it, very good). My best advice is to eat this exact combo every day for dinner and possibly twice a day, it's actually a very healthy and non-fattening meal so long as you don't eat too much rice. Don't eat anything else, you'll be wasting time. Btw Soju is not good but it's a very cheap way to get drunk.

Yeoksamdong is home to the most and the best Sexy Bars...the ultimate pre-gaming locations. When I went back to the states last summer I went to some bars and wow it really made me appreciate Seoul. I couldn't even ****en order a bottle of jack daniels in Ohio, I could only get shots, and all the slack jawed yokels there were looking at me as if I'm a psychopath when I tried to order a bottle of alcohol. God not even ****ing applebee's would let me get one and they even have a ****ing bar with a **** load of bottles right there. You walk down a flight of stairs and open a dimmed glass door and enter heaven. The dimly lit comfortably small bar welcomes you with up to date hip hop music at just the right volume and several beautiful girls wearing bikinis or sexy gowns. You and your friends are seated on barstools and behind the bar one to three girls are provided for you depending how many are in your party and how packed the place is. The bring you hot towels and take your hand and give you a personal hand massages with it and ask you what you'd like to drink. The girls stay and talk with you and pour and mix your drinks for you the entire time and sometimes girls get rotated in and out. If theres not enough girls at the place to accomodate you the manager will always call another sexy bar in the area and tell them to let them borrow some girls for the night. Bliss. These girls are not whores in any way they are completely normal girls often students working there to help pay for school. Usually at any given sexy bar in yeoksamdong half the girls are really attractive and the other half are so-so but got the job cause they have big breasts. But since you'll be a newcomer to Korea and all TL.net geeks love asian girls you are going to find them all gorgeous. They are definitely attainable too if you have what it takes but they usually can't speak english so it might be hard. In these places you have to get atleast a bottle of liquor though, but all the alcohol there goes for almost the exact same price as normal bars! One time I was at one called Bikini University with some friends and this english teacher comes in pretty drunk and alone sits down at the bar and tries to order a beer repeatedly even though they keep telling him he has to order a bottle, then he got kicked out. LOL!

After about an hour and a half to two hours of drinking there head out to Kangnam to check out the hip-hop clubs. There are three main ones in Kangnam NB/Harlem/Mass NB and Harlem have been around a long time each and both play hiphop while Mass is new and plays techno bull**** so don't go there. These clubs are basically the same style as American hiphop clubs, drinking, loud music, grinding. Not much to say about them but you should certainly check them out. Approximately two long island iced teas and thirty minutes later you will realize you are in a hot sweatbox surrounded by Koreans who dance boring as hell, girls who you can't talk to because you don't speak korean and it's way too ****en loud anyways, and some english teachers grinding the ugliest girls in the club. I remember about a year ago I was in NB chilling at the bar cause I can't ****en dance and this white dude came up to me and goes "Sup man!" and I nodded. I really didn't want to talk to him but then I noticed he had small rubber bands on all five fingers of one hand and on three of the other. So I asked him what it was all about and he replies, "EIGHT GIRLS, TEN NIGHTS" proudly. Thats one of the biggest regrets I have in my life, not curb stomping him right then and there. Anyways, time for you to head to Apgujung.

If it were earlier in the day and weather was nice you certainly could go prowl the streets of Apgujeong around Rodeo Drive (pronounced Ro-day-oh) and see the hottest girls in Seoul all over the streets while you get some shopping done. But since you're pretty tipsy now you definitely have to go to Spot or Club I, the two best night clubs in Korea. Spot is located on the west side of Apgujeong and Club I is on the very east side of Apgujeong. Club I has nicer rooms than Spot but Spot has a better dance floor so it doesn't really matter. Club I is my personal favorite and it's located in the basement of the Riviera Hotel. Be glad you have your ID with you cause your ass just got auto-carded cause you're not Korean. Your waiter greets you and guides you through a hall filled with only hot girls going in every which direction sometimes being dragged by a waiter and sometimes going willingly and gets you to your room. It's a nice room with big couches encircling the table. The waiter goes to get your initial ten beers and one or two bottles of whiskey and as soon as the alcohol and fruit dish is in there suddenly some sub-waiter is sitting a girl right next to you. What the **** is going on!!! That's booking it's korean style. Guys get rooms expensively girls get in for free basically and get dragged from room to room. They can leave when they want and they are not whores. You're smart though because you read this guide you know not to get flustered when you realize she can't speak english and you can't speak korean (they all speak a little bit anyways they are just shy to try when they know it'll be bad). Body language and dumbed down english is all you need. Plus you have the universal translater of all languages with you: Mr. Jack Daniels. You get denied and denied and denied over and over because of the language barrier though. Patience is the key. The bitch sat down then looked at you with disgust and instantly got up and left without even saying a word like a rude bitch. **** her, it's not your problem because your beloved waiter is in the process of shipping another girl. All it takes is one good connection and you're set to have fun the whole night. When I first came to Korea during one of my first night club experience this girl sits down and couldn't speak english at all but I was trying really hard at first and she was just totally not reciprocating and being rude yet not leaving at the same time. I turned to my friend and said "Wtf this girl is a stupid bitch why won't she leave?" Then she goes "By the way I'm a Korean American." And got up and left. She was pretty hot but whatever, she probably taught english. Also, there are some methods to get rid of a girl if you don't like her but she seems interested in you. Sip your alcohol without 'Cheersing' hers, continuously look at your phone, ignore her, or flat out tell her to get the **** out. Gtfo works the best from my experience. It's pretty late like 5 or 6 AM now (closes at 7) and you're really drunk and horny and there aren't that many girls left in the club and no girls in your room but luckily you read this guide and knew to get the number of every girl you meet that you are interested in, even if they tried to leave the room, you always asked them for their number. Sometimes girls really just do have to go to the bathroom. Sometimes they really do have to go dance with their friends. It's only bull**** ninety percent of the time so theres always hope. You text message all five girls whos numbers you got and two of them reply. You then text the exact same message to both girls telling them to come to your room hoping atleast one will reply. After 5 minutes one of them walks in and you're good to go. Oh **** two minutes later the other girl walks in and is like "WTF bastard" then walks out. No biggy though because guess what: It doesn't ****ing matter. You bust out the most important Korean phrase there is "Uli Jib ae Ka ja!" (lets go to my place) and GG for that day. Night clubs are the only part of Korean culture that is really necessary to experience.

The next day you wake up hung over as **** at 4 PM wondering where the hell the girl went but thats okay. Starcraft matches at COEX! Take a few ****s, order some food, but not chinese food because chinese food in Korea is worse than chinese food in China. After all that you go out and get a cab short distance to COEX mall to watch some progamers battle it out. You sit there in the taxi in the insanely jammed up traffic still feeling like **** from consuming alcohol for 11 hours straight like a ticking time bomb ready to friggen explode and then you see an english teacher get hit by a bus and....ok blah blah blah thats getting too carried away! Anyways watching Starcraft matches at Coex or wherever pretty much ****ing sucks. Nothing special about it and it might even effect how you view the grandure of the progaming scene negatively. It's a must-do atleast once though plus you'll certainly get on TV cause you're not korean so you can hold up a TL.net or a **** Nazgul sign. The area around Coex is pretty blah, theres some sexy bars though so thats always a plus. Samsungdong is a business area mostly like Yeoksam but less cramped and more car dealerships. Nothing to see there except Coex mall, but hey, thats the place in the world you're most likely to run into progamers or get a picture with Kang Min himself.

For whatever next day you decide to go out you should try out Circle in Apgujung which is basically inbetween both night clubs. It plays trance/techno style music but it's still a very good club. Find a way to call in early and reserve a table in the VIP lounge in the back to enhance your experience. But be warned the owner of many room salons (whoring basically) owns that club, so basically all of the really attractive females at that club are working girls (but are not working when they are there). You cannot succeed with these girls unless you buy them a car or give them ten thousand dollars, lol.

There are plenty of other locations where you can party. I guess I can take my word back and you could cross the river and check out Hongdae/Sinchon. Thats where most university students go to drink and club. Last time I was there I was drinking with an ex-roommate and some of his co-workers and this english teaching friend of one of his co-workers told me that I was wasting MY life in Korea by 'just playing poker.' Me and my roommate then verbally berated him into leaving. Haven't been back there since. The biggest concentration of non-korean people here is located on the dirty side of the river, in a place called Itaewon. Alot of US Army soldiers there. Itaewon has various ripoff cheap clothing shoes and whatever stores and you can bargain. There is one good club in Itaewon called Spy. The owner of that place owns a teleshopping channel so he makes all his white girl models party there on the weekends. Alot of Russian and eastern european girls there.

I'm running out of things to write and this article is starting to lull. Just as this article has started to lull so is does my life in Seoul. I still certainly love it here but if you come here for a vacation it will be great if you follow my guide but if you live here and get used to the all the stuff it's not all that. You need a ****load of money to have any fun here. Everyone smokes. Traffic is bad. Seoul is a very beautiful dirty city. But wherever you go it's going to be the same sick life. Drinking at whatever style bar, clubbing at whatever style club or night club. No pretty sites to see. While I am being a bit negative here I in no way feel negatively towards this these are just the facts as I see them. It's an awesome place for weeks and months but maybe after years it gets a bit burdensome. Certainly never gets old though. I luckily can stay refreshed because I'm blessed with poker as a job so I can travel around and do other stuff. I will remain here for a long time I'm sure though because all my best friends live here and I got no where else to go. Plus no matter how many times I swear to myself to stop going out so much every time I'm outa the country it just makes me appreciate how fun Korea is.

So come to Korea, follow my guide, maybe earn a few rubber bands for your fingers, stay here for days, weeks, or months whatever you like this guide alone will certainly last you that long and I didn't even include any of the dirty stuff you can do haha. If you're a loser with no life at the age of twenty-five with no job and girls don't pay attention to you and would like to teach a little bit of english then I just gave you a clear path to happiness, just don't ever ****ing cross my path.

Thank you for reading,
Rekrul

This is the dumbest foreigner's guide to Korea I've ever read. I mean, jaw-droppingly ******ed.

Would you like to explain why?

I think it starts with your advice that ssamgyeopsal is barely better than a McDonalds burger and ends with "Night clubs are the only part of Korean culture that is really necessary to experience." It's the dumbest, shallowest, ******ed foreigner's guide to a country I've pretty much ever read. Sounds like you've spent a lot of time in Korea without knowing much about Korea at all; basically, you're a dilettante who's taken a thin slice of what a country is like and fancied himself an expert.

here's what i learned about korea when i was there, which is much more anti-tldr than OP's version.

1. if you do not speak korean and have no koreans traveling with you, you will die.
2. it is cold.
3. koreans in jjim jil bang's go out of their way to be naked more than people are in their own homes.
4. foods good. (edit: samgyeopsal is really ****ing good)
5. pc bangs are plentiful and cheap.

skunk: Okay some ssamgyupsal is really good, I'll give you that. But I definitely have experienced everything. Like I said in the premise...the guide is intended for young males who have some cash and want to travel to Korea and not be clueless on what to do. It is indeed shallow as ****...thats the idea...most young males with money travelling around to foreign countries want to do all sorts of shallow things, not go see some temples.

You know how many times I've had people tell me they were in korea for a while but didn't really know what to do for fun? Well, it's a lot. Sure they enjoyed their samgyupsal, soju, norebangs, and pochangmachas, as they are all great parts of Korean culture, but they could have done a lot more.

If I wanted to I could easily write a positive tourist guide aimed at a target audience of soccer moms explaining all the sights to see, foods to eat, and places to visit...but thats not what I was doing here. This is a concise article about a certain aspect of a country aimed at a very specific target audience. If you read it keeping that in mind I think it's a different kind of tourist guide in a good way, and certainly one of a kind.

Did an English teacher kill your father?

Seconding skunkworks motion that you are a huge ******!

lol

I went to Japan, and the temples and artifacts were among the most interesting things, and something I'll remember for a long time. I also observed the culture and subtle nuances of how people acted towards foreigners and each other, which were both very very interesting. You on the other hand just dedicated a paragraph on how to hit on every single korean girl in a club and harass them until they come and have sex with you. Classy.

Next time, comment on some finer points of the country, like the scenery, attractions that aren't just tourist landmarks, and maybe a couple interesting comparisons instead of shallow garbage.

LOL

I lost steam halfway through but the best bits I read were:

1. The OP trying to order a bottle of whiskey in an Applebees. I think a waitress' brain would explode. Have to be polite but he wants a bottle of liquor at the table....

2. The feeling towards the english teachers. I've known a few folks who traveled to distant lands in order to teach english so OP's hate doesn't surprise me. They tend to be the need to flee the country but haven't done anything worthy of denying a visa sort.

I didn't quite get to the end. What I find funny OP is that you hate on English Teachers because of how you perceive them to act, but in reality you act in the same exact way:

Also what I find funny is that you hate on an English teacher because he couldn't figure out how to order a beer. But then you follow that up with this gem:

Who tries to order a bottle of liquor at Applebee's? Get off your ****ing high horse already OP. I guess you were at least right about this:

go climb a mountain and visit a monastary

Nobody locks their doors in seoul. I remember drinking with some army brats near ichon. They disrespected everything and anything because Koreans are passive people and they could get away with it easily. It was a great contrast of North American/Asian culture.

To address your stuff about the english teachers and girls:

Once again, another person who reads an article and doesn't fully comprehend what has been said. If you're not going to read the whole thing or you're not going to understand what I really mean, please keep your mouth shut. I, as the author of this article, have never once said that this is how I do it. This is advice to a guy who will end up being drunk and horny in South Korea. In this article I have never once bragged about myself or talked about anything as if they are abilities that make me special in any way. Even my opening about being able to speak korean and making a girl stay is merely just an example to show you how powerful it is to speak the language and warn you about how hard it is to be in korea without speaking the language. You will never ever see me posting/typing about any sort of success with a female, nor will you ever hear me talking about it.

You say I act the same way as the english teachers that I describe. These are guys with no future running around dirty club to dirty club trying to **** every ugly girl they can. I'd like to think that when I don't have a girlfriend and want to meet a girl if I go to place where I have to actually engage in conversation with a girl who isn't wasted to have a shot that I am better than those english teachers. Maybe not though?? The end game is all the same EH???

To address the jack daniels stuff:

I need a full bottle of alcohol to get drunk, I don't want to have to keep calling the waiter/waitress for non stop shots? (Plus there were 5 of us who wanted to drink in our party?). I don't see how this makes you think I'm on some sort of high horse. Bars, clubs, wherever all buy bottles of alcohol very cheaply and if they can't sell them for whatever price thats pretty friggen stupid in my opinion.

Why are there always these random idiots on the internet trying to make themselves sound smart by nitpicking certain parts of articles and taking them out of context to make some condescending points that don't even make sense?

If you can't handle the way things are, shut the **** up.

There is no nitpicking taking place, everyone in this thread generally agrees, according to the content in the posts made thus far, that you sound like a giant douchebag and your trip report sucked. Good day.

What about that Korean thing where they clasp the hands together with the index finger outstretched, and then stab at another person's sphincter muscle with it? What's up with that.

This doesn't make sense.. she was Korean-American but didn't speak English?

Who are your best friends?

Could you share what your daily schedule looks like on a typical weekday? Weekend?

BTW, I think your trip reports on TL/LP are some of the best poker-related reading material but you do come off as a bit of a dbag in this guide. e.g. Telling a girl to "Gtfo" just because you don't want her company isn't exactly commendable behavior (maybe it is on TL, on 2+2 it's not). Regardless, I'm glad you're sharing stuff here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kancho
looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Kancho is more interesting
Let's talk about this more.

For example:

http://www.kancho.org/photocontest.html (Not suitable for kancho-haters)

Just to clarify this is a Japanese thing not Korean, but still done in Korea.

and omg the pics and stories on that site are hilarious

"Night clubs are the only part of Korean culture that is really necessary to experience."

wtf?

I enjoyed the OP, even though he sounds like a total psychopath.

Also, what do you mean Seoul is a small city?

"The Seoul National Capital Area - which includes the major port city of Incheon and many satellite towns in Gyeonggi-do - has almost 23 million inhabitants, making it the second most populous metropolitan area in the world. "

As a Korean who is from Daechi dong, I do find some of your advices are good especially about the places to party. It's true that Yeoksam, Apgujeong, and near Gangnam station are the best places to eat and drink and get laid. But to say that partying is the only thing to do in Korea is pretty ridiculous. Have you ventured outside of Seoul at all? If you haven't, I suggest going on a road trip with your many gamer friends.

As Korea is surrounded by sea on 3 sides, there are many beaches to visit in summer, like Pusan in the south or Sokcho/Gangneung in the east. one's chance of hooking up with a hot chick is a lot better in one of those places because everyone's in vacation and wants to have fun. In winter you can go to one of many ski resorts in Kangwondo. Ski resort in Korea is always one of the most fun place to visit with your buddies because the resorts are equipped with first class amenities like great restaurants, bars, clubs, etc and filled with young people. I love it when I go skiing because I wake up, ski all day, have a nice dinner, go back to night skiing, after which I can drink my night away with hot girls in the sick club and repeat this process for a few days.

You also have so many choices of mountains to hike because 2/3 of Korea is mountainous. Seoul Ak mountain is famous for its beautiful scenery, especially in the fall when the mountain becomes covered with maple leaves. Or you can go visit the Han Ra mountain in Jeju island. Jeju island is a perfect spot for a relaxing vacation because the weather is nice, you can find good golf courses, eat amazing seafood, etc. It might not be the best place to party but not everyone is into partying.

If you are not the partying type, there are many places where you can experience the Korean history and culture. For example, one of my Canadian friend visited Haein temple in Hap-chon for "temple stay." He stayed there for a week, eating the same food as the monks, meditating, doing chores around the temple, living on the same schedule as the monks, etc (basically experiencing the life of monks for a week.) Although I wouldn't do it myself, he thoroughly enjoyed it and is planning for another stay in a different temple. You can also visit one of the ancient capitals like Kyung Ju to see the historical sites and cultural properties that have been handed down through many many generations.

You might not care for some of the places and activities I mentioned above and I understand that. I just hope that you expand your horizon and visit lots of places in Korea because you have the opportunity and the resources to do so. Keep in mind that Kanganam is a very very small part of Korea. You can't say you experienced everything in Korea just because you know which place has the best Galbi and which clubs have the hottest chicks.

I also have a question for OP, apart from Kancho.

I'm Chinese. I visited Korea a few years ago. It looked as if all Koreans are hot-blooded and have a fierce disposition. I feared that I would be beaten up at the slightest breach of etiquette. Do you agree/disagree?

I've lived in Korea for 3 years and if I had just one day to take a good young male friend out for a good time in Korea, I'd follow this guide exactly. For everyone disregarding this guide for it's disrespectful tone, try and take it for what it is and know that if you followed it, I guarantee you will have one of the best night's of your life.