Thank you for sharing. My parents worried about me for quite a while. It's a foreign country, so it must be dangerous, right? And every time North Korea was in the news I had to call them to let them know we weren't running for the hills. And, of course, back in the 90s people just didn't know much about Korea. But even as their worry lessened with time, they were certain that my life would be better in the States than it could ever possibly be here. Even so, they were supportive and never pushed me to come back. Maybe a slight nudge here and there. Like your son, I had a period of a few years without visiting. In my case, it was my father who hopped on a plane. That was in 2005, and I'd been here 14 years. I showed him as much as I could. He visited my in-laws' house, met some of my friends, and experienced some of my favorite things about life here. When he got back to the States, he reported to my mother that everything was fine, there was nothing to worry about, and he was certain I was better off here. Then again, given the nature of my adolescence, he was probably just relieved to see I was alive and walking free!

You will fall in love with Korea and the Korean people. 💖

I'm foreigner married to korean I live here around 24 yrs now .what I love about korea everything are organize and easy to earn money ,clean surroundings plus within the city has a mountain and a mini forest I can't speak fluently korean but it doesn't matter as long you can understand and speak .

정말 감사합니다! 한국에서의 삶이 가끔 힘들기도 했지만, 그래도 많은 것을 배웠고 성장할 수 있었습니다. 즐거운 하루 되세요!

너무 감사합니다.

해외에 살아보면 알게되죠... 한국이 얼마나 안전하고 살기좋고 편리한 나라인지...

@@jihooncha-vs4om적당히를 모르시네😅

나는 알아들을 수 있는 님들이 부럽...

한국도 많이 부족하죠.. 고칠점은 분명있지만, 좋게봐주시고 살아주셔서 감사해요😊

Thank you! And thanks for sharing. We may well have crossed paths at some point.

Hello. I know Camp Casey. Isn't that Dongducheon? My father worked for a while in the Camp Casey U.S. Army.

@@snowkoko9996 Yes, that's correct.

I appreciate your service to South Korea.

@@josephcho3607 Thank you!

시간이 너무 빨리 지나갔어요.

감사합니다

너무 감사합니다

영어에는 '청춘은 젊은이에게 헛되이 주어진다'는 말이 있습니다. 30년 전에는 시간을 소중히 여기지 않았습니다. 지금은 시각이 많이 달라졌습니다. 댓글 감사합니다. 좋은 하루 되세요.

@@MikeFromKorea 청춘은 젊은이에게 헛되이 주어진다! 정말 맞는말 같네요. 소중함을 모를때 왔다가는 시간과 인연들...2번 산다고 더 잘할것 같지는 않지만^^ 잠시 삶을 되돌아보게 만드는 말인것 같습니다. 저는 미국에 가보고 싶은곳이 많은데 언젠가 이루어지면 좋겠네요. 한국에서 행복하시길 바랍니다!

@@MikeFromKorea That is a wonderful expression, which may not be easily understood by young generations. Can you give me the exact English expression, so I can memorize? Thanks Mike! (FYI, I am a Korean middle-aged man (an "Ajeossi) in mid-50's, ha ha)

@@plee1022 Sure: Youth is wasted on the young.

Thank you! That's very kind.

돼지바는….. 아마 지구상 거의 모든 사람들이 좋아하게 될거예용…. ㅎㅎ

Thank you! I need to get down to Gimhae one of these days. Still haven't been there.

South !odea seems very congested. Very Western. Korean is hRd to learn so I'm told😊

What about health care and support for old age.

@@suzettedezilwa7486 Korea has a single-payer healthcare system that ranks among the best in the world in terms of outcomes. From the patient perspective, it's great. From the provider's perspective, it's a different story. I think the article on Wikipedia gives a good general idea, though the tone is a bit biased in places: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_South_Korea As for elderly care, Korea does have a pension system and provides other benefits (free meals at senior centers, free public transportation for seniors, etc), but the pension is inadequate: www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20231103000474 Last year, my mother in-law began receiving a new stipend in addition to her pension: 100,000 won per month to spend on food. She was issued a debit card that can only be used in eateries and grocers in the local neighborhood.

감사합니다! 아르헨티나에서도 제 영상을 즐겨 주셔서 정말 기쁩니다. 목소리가 마음에 드셨다니 영광이에요. 응원 정말 감사드리고, 좋은 하루 되세요!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you! I'm glad you asked the earlier question, actually, as it's set me on a path I wouldn't have taken on my own initiative. I've got some exploring to do! Regarding your new question, the Seoul City Wall Trail isn't all that long, really. The old Joseon era capital was small. Pretty much anywhere you stay on the north side of the river is going to be within a 15-20 minute radius of most of the starting points by subway, excluding the extreme east and west of the city limits. As to how to tackle it... Generally speaking, I think most people would have no trouble finishing the whole thing in two days. A serious hiker can do it in one. The Inwangsan and Baegaksan sections are the most challenging. Start early and knock those two sections out, then the rest will be a cake walk. So if hiking the trail is the main goal, then I'd say aim for two or three days. I'd suggest hitting the sections in this order: Two-Day Plan -- Day 1: Inwangsan, Baegaksan, Naksan; Day 2: Heunginjimun (Dongdaemun), Namsan, Seungnyemun (Namdaemun) Three-Day Plan -- Day 1: Inwangsan, Baegaksan; Day 2: Naksan, Heunginjimun; Day 3: Namsan, Seungnyemun The three-day plan lets you take a more leisurely pace and gives you time to explore some of the areas around the trail on days 2 and 3. And if exploring is your goal, then I'd break it up into five days, with Inwangsan and Baegaksan on Day 1, and one day each for the other sections. In case you aren't already familiar with this site, you may find it helpful: seoulcitywall.seoul.go.kr/en/content/72.do That site lists the distance and an estimated time to complete each trail. Those times are a little on the high side for me. For example, it lists the Naksan and Huenginjimun trails at an hour each. Together, they cover around 4km. I sometimes include them in my daily walk, and it takes me about an hour to do both. There's absolutely nothing to slow you down on the Naksan section. So if you and your family are regular walkers, you might consider those estimates high.

@@MikeFromKorea wow that website was just the kind of thing we’ve been searching for but couldn’t find. Thankyou! Ok, so that’s good info and interesting to note Re the sections. We definitely want to take our time and explore. But knocking it over in days instead of a week or more is great to help us have a loose plan. So awesome to hear my q about food unlocked a new avenue of exploring for you! We love Korean food and have found some great places locally (we are in Australia), if our daughter goes to Seoul to study as she’s planning, and when we come to holiday and visit, I want to know she will eat well and not make every meal from convenience stores! But that’s student life too, really, I guess 🤔

Thanks! Yeah, that's a popular one.

ㅎㅎㅎㅎㅎ 대답이 귀여워용 ㅋㅋㅋ

Awesome! I know a lot of people go there for the beaches, but I've always liked it better in the winter. I'm thinking of going at the end of this year or early next to spend a few days filming. Have a great time!

우리 친척인가요?

Thank you! That's very kind.

Hi Mike, I am into financial investments, I am looking forward to expand my business in Korea, let me know if you would be interested in helping me. I don't know Korean and I do know life in Korea is expensive, so just trying to make things easier for them.

Thanks, but I'm completely the wrong person to ask about anything related to doing business here. Totally not my thing. You might find some help with that on the Living in Korea subreddit: www.reddit.com/r/Living_in_Korea/ .

Do you remember anything from that time? I once had a Korean American coworker whose family had emigrated to the States when she was 7. They never brought her back here growing up, so she came back in her late 20s to connect with her roots. I drove her to her birthplace a little outside of Seoul. She didn't remember much about it until we got there, and then several memories came back. It was a strong experience for her.

@@MikeFromKorea I remember there were so many new experiences I’ve had from that time. What stuck out most was I remember I really enjoyed going to blockbuster, movie theaters, and toys R us.

Thank you for sharing. Yes, financial stability has always been a concern. I bounced around between jobs for a few years after the Army. I could have pursued a stable career had I continued to work for the US government as a direct employee or with a contractor. I had good opportunities there, but I eventually realized that wasn't the life I wanted. And so I ended up as a freelance English teacher for quite a long time. There's the potential for good money in that, and I had some good years, but it was variable and unstable. Now my only job is with a small charitable foundation based in Seattle. They pay me all they can afford to, which is very little, but I'd do it for free if I could. It started as a side job, as it's not enough to live on if it's the only income my wife and I have. She used to have a stable income working for real estate agencies, but now she's a freelance agent working exclusively on commission. Her income depends on the state of the real estate market, and it's in a major slump right now. And so one of my motivations for giving KZfaq a go is to supplement my income. I'm not trying to get rich here. I do have a specific target that will allow me to give up my salary and work on a volunteer basis with the foundation. Then they could pay someone else to get onto some of the work we need done that no one has time for, and I can cut back a bit on my responsibilities and make more videos. It would be fantastic if I can get there. And of course, KZfaq is not exactly a stable source of income, but for now at least I can pursue it and see where it leads.

Much appreciated!

Thank you!

Thank you! I'll get there eventually.

Thank you! That's very kind.

@@MikeFromKorea ❤️ not too many normal people around, you feel like a normal one. But life can be stressful, to be fair. All the best for your upcoming London visit. It'll be good.

Thanks for the suggestion! I touched on that a little bit in the video titled 'Everything's Changing'. Change, big and small, is an underlying theme of the channel, though I don't always deal with it directly. The video about my Itaewon memories, the one about Hannam New Town ('These Seoul Neighborhoods will Never be the Same Again'), the videos where I talk about hole-in-the-wall restaurants and how they used to be everywhere, but now they aren't, etc. I'm planning to talk about more things like that over time. For example, I've been working on something about the history of coffee in Korea. The coffee scene has changed dramatically since I've been here and I didn't even notice it was happening. I'm also thinking about something related to the major cultural changes I've seen, something on how general attitudes seem to have changed, and more.

@@MikeFromKorea Thank you for your reply. I just subscribed to your channel. I'm going to watch your previous videos.

Awesome! Thank you!

Good advice.

yes👍📌good chice~~ And 콩나물국밥 비지찌게 콩국수 . 두부전문점. 비빔국수. 찾아보면 더욱 많아요~

Thanks, Matt! It all goes by so fast. I'll look forward to your "30 Years in Korea Q&A"!

@@MikeFromKorea haha only another 19.5 years left and I'm on it! By the way congrats on getting to 1k subscribers!

@@lostthenfound Thanks! Now I'm just waiting for YT to catch up on the watch hour count on the meter to 4,000. It's showing numbers from 5 days ago, inching up ever so slowly. Should be there in two or three more days.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Korean Buddhist cuisine is THE BEST I've ever experienced in my life. I call it food from heaven.

Glad you liked it!

Thanks for sharing!!

I've used unsupervised stores in N California countryside!

Thanks! The first time a Korean pointed out to me that I'd been in Korea longer than he had, it hit me in a weird way. Now I embrace it!

Thank you!

Thanks! My quick-brain answer is that they're basically just suburbs where many of the residents commute to work in the city everyday. There's more to it than that, though. I think each satellite city has its own story. I know that Seongnam was developed as a manufacturing center in the Park Chung Hee era, but it was also intended to take some pressure off the explosion of the population of Seoul. Today, it's basically just an extension of Seoul. I mean, it's still a separate city, but many Seoul workers live in Seongnam's Bundang District, it's tightly integrated with the public transportation network, and people go back and forth between them on a regular basis. It might as well be Seongnam-gu instead of Seongnam-si (a district of Seoul rather than a separate city). I'll explore this some more and see what I can come up with for the next Q&A video.

감사합니다

Nice to meet you!

I came to Korea in a time when the Korean people were learning how to adapt to the influx of foreigners. The foreign population in Korea up until the late 80s was relatively small. I've read that it was around 40,000 at its peak. I don't know if that includes American military personnel, but if it doesn't, it only goes up to a little over 70,000. By 2019 there were over 2 million of us here. On top of that, Koreans didn't have the opportunity to travel abroad until the late 80s. It was prohibited without special permission for many years, then gradually started opening up (people with a certain income, then people over 50, etc) until it became completely unrestricted. So the 90s was a time of massive transition as the world started to have more influence on Korea both culturally and socially. I would say that for my first decade here, I was treated as a visitor by most people. Many had never met a foreigner in person. Many people were hesitant to speak English because of a lack of confidence, but would always assume I didn't speak Korean and make the effort anyway. They'd frequently try to teach me things about Korean culture and history, assuming I didn't know anything about either. Random people would wave and say "Welcome to Korea" as they passed me on the sidewalk. That kind of thing. There were also practical difficulties in daily life, like trying to get a telephone or internet contract, and especially mobile phones when they came around. No problem if you had a job on a US military base, as they had a deal with Korea Telecom to set that up. But if you were out on your own, it was a nightmare. Every telecom had their own system for dealing with foreigners, but even then it was inconsistent. The same telecom might require you to get a Korean to cosign or maybe make a ridiculously large deposit, both steps intended to ensure they still get their money if you left the country. Name any consumer-facing or government system that required paperwork and it was a massive PITA for foreigners. I could go on and on, but that should give you an idea. All of that started to change in the early 2000s, and by the 2010s it was a distant memory. For me, anyway. The only time I get treated like a visitor now is when I go to a tourist-heavy area like Myeongdong. A lot of the vendors and shop staff assume I'm a tourist, which is understandable given how many they deal with on a daily basis. I can't speak to your relative's experience. I have no idea what it's like for someone coming to Korea today. Anything I say would be pure speculation and most likely inaccurate from their perspective. What I can say is that the main thing that prevents me from feeling fully integrated at this point is my abysmal Korean vocabulary and grammar. But I've had over 30 years to adapt to living here. There are probably things newcomers are affected by that I don't even notice anymore.

@@MikeFromKorea Thank you for taking your time to answer. I think you are right. Korea has undergone many changes in the last 3 decades, so from your perspective probably it is a bit harder to tell how it is for newly arrived foreigners. But I am glad that you could develop your life in Korea. I like Korea very much, it’s culture, food, etc. Stay save. Thanks again.

네, 정말 흥미로운 시대였죠. 사회와 문화가 매우 빠르게 변화하던 시기였습니다.

Thank you!

Thanks for your comment. Wow, I haven't heard the name 'Camp Essayons' in quite a long time. I just looked it up to see what's been done with it. There's a hospital there now and a park is supposed to open at the end of next year. The first time I went back to Dongducheon was around 96 or maybe 97. I spent the night, saw some old friends. They'd done some work on the highway near there, expanded it or something, I can't recall. I just remember it being different. The next time I went was after they'd expanded the subway line. And yeah, so much of it was unrecognizable. I did, however, find an area that still looked the same. But it was an island in a sea of unfamiliarity. And yeah, I was there when Markle did his thing. We were locked down for over two weeks. Big protest outside Gate 1, smaller one outside Gate 2, every day. They threw molotov cocktails made from soju bottles, spray painted "YANKEE GO HOME" all over the walls. The post bus service kept running, though. I remember taking a trip to Seoul during that period. The bus went through the back gate and through the little training area that was there, into the Camp Hovey back gate and out its main gate. The protesters completely ignored it. The only thing that was over there was that tiny little village I've done one video in northwestern Seoul looking for old restaurants near Bulgwang and Yeonsinnae Stations. I'm planning to put out a few more around Eungam station, DMC, World Cup Stadium, etc. No promises as to when, though.

Thanks! I did play in the pool league briefly for Woodstock. I was visiting there one night to say hi to Mr. Woo and he convinced me to join, even though I hadn't played for years. That must have been around 2010 or so. I only played for a few weeks. I just wasn't up to being around so many drunk people so often anymore, or drinking so much myself.

Thank you! I once assumed that everyone who emigrated actually intended to do so, especially those going to the States. It seems like it would be such a huge decision. It was a big surprise to learn otherwise.

감사합니다

감사합니다!

Thanks! I'm not much for small talk, so it doesn't bother me. But you might be surprised how often Koreans start conversations with me. It doesn't happen now as often as it used to, but it still does.

맞아요! 감사합니다.

Thank you!

For the record, one of my favorite egg bread vendors is in Myeongdong, and most of the other egg bread vendors aren't bad. Two of my favorite dongaseu restaurants are located there as well. I wouldn't write it off completely as a tourist trap. Stay away from anything that looks gimmicky and you should be good. To your question, though, Namdaemun Market has some excellent street food vendors. There's a little old lady selling bungeoppang there that's just fantastic, and a couple selling heotteok that my wife sometimes asks me to pick up when I'm out on my walks. I think that's a great place to go for street food. You used to be able to find street food vendors on most of the major streets, but the times have changed. They aren't allowed now in many areas where they used to be. You'll usually find them in any university neighborhood (especially Hongdae) and you can find a few set up in local neighborhood markets. Other than that, there are a few areas around the city where the local government rents out sidewalk booths. You'll find street food vendors in some of those. One area that comes to mind is the stretch of Jong-ro between Dondaemun and Dongmyo Stations. There are also several in Insadong, but unfortunately that's more of a tourist trap these days. I haven't really liked anything I've bought there. I picked up some egg bread there today. It was too small and didn't taste very good. Now and then, someone will set up a cart somewhere unexpected. I saw an egg bread vendor yesterday set up in one of the little pedestrian triangles between crosswalks at an intersection. You can also find little shops now, often chain shops, selling what you used to only get from street vendors.

How did you meet your future wife?

A friend introduced us.

Mike, I was kind of surprised at your long years of staying in Korea. I like and respect what you have mentioned about living in Korea, which I agree wholeheartedly. Questions remain though. I still have some lingering thought on Korea in its fierce competition on each others. That feeling prevented me from applying for a multi national citizenship. I am a naturalized citizen here in San Francisco. My thanks to you and to your wife.

@@wonyi54 Thank you! Given the career I've had here working as a freelancer, I've been able to avoid all the professional competitiveness, and I just don't care about the social one-upmanship. I can't say life has been stress-free, but it's certainly been stress-minimal. I have some Korean friends who have some stories to tell, though.

It’s not bad accessibility because there are small green-bus or subway around slums with lots of stairs but yes, they can't completely avoid going up and down stairs if you mean 25:04.

Thank you! Quite often, there are alternatives to the stairs, usually a more roundabout way along a road. And when there aren't, there's probably nothing at the top of the stairs that anyone would need to lug their bags to anyway. Most guesthouses are going to be in an accessible location, even if it's up a hill. I expect those that aren't accessible wouldn't last very long. I could have avoided most of the stairs you saw in this video to get to the same places. The only exception was the gate. There are three ways up to it, and they all have stairs. But the rest weren't necessary. That said, I'm constantly amazed by all the elderly people here who don't turn away from the stairs. I hope I'm still able to do the same in 20 years!

Ah! Even at 25:04 you can avoid the stairs. It just means a longer walk :-)

Thank you!

I ignored Achasan for years, but I fell in love with it the first time I hiked it. Thanks for your questions. 1) I use Davinci Resolve Studio to edit my videos. It has a built-in AI-based subtitle generator. It does make mistakes, so I have to make a pass through the whole video to correct errors and ensure the timings aren't too far off, but overall it does a great job. I edited the Q&A with the latest beta version and it seems they've made some improvements that have decreased the error rate. I'll have to see if that holds or if it was just this video. 2) There are multiple music licensing services out there that provide stock music. Typically, you pay a subscription fee and can download any song from their catalog subject to specific terms based on the nature of your subscription (useable only on a limited number of KZfaq channels--like 1 or 3---monetization allowed or not, usable in TV/Movies/Games or not, etc). Several of them offer more than music, like sound effects, video templates, visual effects, etc. For my other channel, I've used one called Artlist.io in the past. Right now I have a lifetime membership with Audiio.com and a monthly subscription with Lickd.co. A $15/mo Lickd subscription gives access to a massive stock music catalog, but they also have a huge selection of mainstream commercial music across several genres, both old and new: John Denver, Jim Croce, The Kinks, Green Day, Due Lipa, Justin Bieber, Toby Keith, all kinds of stuff. With a subscription, the mainstream songs can be licensed for $8 each. Without a subscription, they're $32 each and you don't have access to the stock music. Had I known about them sooner, I never would have paid a lifetime membership to Audiio. I did get it at a significantly reduced rate, so it's not as painful as it could have been.

Yeah, bummer about the bar. I was happy to see the restaurant there, though. Haven't been to it in a while. A good friend used to have his birthday dinner there every year, and that's how I found it.

Great suggestion! I didn't think of that. I know a temple on Ungilsan that serves free green tea, but I'd forgotten all about the "temple food" thing. Thanks!

반갑습니다, 이웃님

Chocolate and vanilla are pretty much all I eat. The exception is when I'm at a gelato shop in Europe. I go for it all in one of those places. Every time I go back to the States, I have this weird mix of feeling at home while feeling like a stranger. It's both familiar and foreign. I do enjoy my visits, but my life is so different from what my friends and relatives experience that we may as well be on different planets. One cool thing about that is I get to explore my own hometown like a tourist! But after two or three weeks, that starts to wear off and I'm always ready to get back to Korea.

So you've been gone for a while then. I passed very near Yeokcheon-dong in my video about Eunpyeong-gu. When was the last time you were there? I expect it's very, very different from when you lived there.

@@MikeFromKorea I was there when my brother got married in the early '90's so it's been a while. Yes, that was my neighborhood, graduated from Yale Kindergarten and Elementary school.

감사합니다! 영상을 즐겨 주셔서 기쁩니다.

Thank you! I didn't mention this in the email I sent you, but I knew a couple of people who were here in the early 90s and came back 20+ years later as government contractors. They were stunned by the changes they saw then. And that was a decade ago now. Based on what I've heard from you so far, it seems like it's pretty much disorienting in your case. 37 years is a lifetime.

Are you talking about restaurants that serve meals sized for one that are usually meant for groups? Like barbecue? I've never been to one, so I don't pay any attention to them. But the Lost then Found channel has a video about it: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mtKUmMlls8Xcm30.htmlsi=7LwkejocXIRhnLGj.

hi just re read what i wrote..🤣i meant 4yrs

thank you very useful info!!

I'm sure the foreigners who are vegetarian/vegan know where they are :-)

Seoul is a tidy city overall. The street cleaners are out every morning. Unless you're referring to something else? The condition of the buildings? Insadong and Bukchon don't match the criteria given in the question I answered. They're the opposite really: quite busy, more commercial, and don't really represent what it feels like to live in Seoul. Aside from that, rooms there are quite expensive. If none of that matters to you, then sure, they could be good places to stay for the experience. As you say, they're centrally located. You can also find some guesthouses in traditional hanok. However, Hansung University Station, which I suggested in the video, is just 2km away. Easily walkable, and a short bus ride.

Thank you for the information. I am Korean but lived in Korea less than you have lived in Korea, so haha who's talking😝

감사합니다! 남편분의 입맛이 좋으시네요 :-)

Nice! I need to get back up there.

저도 예전에는 두 나라 사이에서 난감하게 느껴졌었는데, 요즘은 한국에서 더 자연스럽게 지내고 있어요. 이제 한국이 외국 같지 않게 되었답니다.

We have multiple ways to know what the air quality is each day. Everyone's sensitivity to it is different. In my case, it only physically affects me when it's at extreme ranges. In those cases I'll stay inside. If I absolutely must go out, I'll wear a mask. When it's high but not extreme, I'll still go out, but I won't do any strenuous activities. And yes, we have air purifiers in my house. And really, from my perspective the situation isn't bad at all. Air pollution in Seoul was much worse 30 years ago. It was often quite visible. Every time I road my moped with my helmet's mask raised, I'd have a black square around my face when I took off my helmet. Every time I blew my nose, whatever came out would be some shade of gray or nearly black. It's been a long time since that happened.

The area around the wall isn't my neighborhood. I do live near the city wall, but another section of it close to Namsan Town Apartments where I started the video. Seoul has hills all over the place, and I do live at the top of a hill now, but I've lived on steeper hills before. I'm used to it.

I work for a tech non-profit based in Seattle.

That wouldn't have been me. I did sometimes go out to Sinchon/Hongdae in the mid- to late 90s, but usually only at night. I never worked out that way. In 2000, I was working near Seolleung Station.

@@MikeFromKorea back in the days of hodge podge, joker red, Route 66, etc :)

Thank you!

When you live here, you probably aren't going to spend 18,000 won on two small coffees and bagels on a regular basis. I know I don't. There are much cheaper options available. Cafe/bakery prices vary pretty widely, primarily influenced by location. A bagel in a local independent bakery in my neighborhood is 3,000. Just up the street is a Mega Coffee branch. As a major chain, their prices are consistent. And it's actually good. I've pretty much given up Starbucks. They sell a 2-shot Americano in one size equivalent to a Starbucks venti for 1500 won. I always add a shot, so it costs me 2,000. So two coffees + two bagels with my wife is 9,500 won (she doesn't get the extra shot). Any one place where you sit and get the same is probably going to run you anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000, and the quality doesn't always correlate with the price. Mercer ranks Seoul at #16 on their cost-of-living index for 2023 and NYC at #6. But they just measure major cities. Numbeo includes many more cities and has Seoul at #72 for 2024 and NYC at #7. Their data is crowd-sourced, so it doesn't go through the same rigor as other indices, but it's considered generally reliable. In the 30 years since I left the Army, I've never once felt that Seoul was unaffordable. My wife and I went through a financial crisis of our own making in the early 2000s, but even then we didn't really struggle. We were able to scale back on everything, including moving into a low-rent apartment, and a year later we had our heads above water again. We're far from being rich, but we've been able to live comfortably. There's no doubt we could have lived more cheaply had we moved out of Seoul, but then we wouldn't have had the same opportunities or the same income levels. Regarding jobs, I'm not the best person to ask.The last time I got a job without a marriage visa or permanent residency was in the late 90s. Back then, English teaching was the usual way in and pretty much anyone could do it, but the rules and regulations have changed significantly since then and they're more strictly enforced. However, I've seen videos here on YT from foreigners who came here to work in Korean firms as marketers, social media managers, and more, and I know a few people who were hired from abroad as software engineers. So there are multiple opportunities if you have the skillset that matches one of them. The Living in Korea subreddit would be a good place to search and ask: www.reddit.com/r/Living_in_Korea/.

Nice! We landed at Osan AB because we were on a chartered Federal Express plane (that's when I learned they even had passenger planes). There was a mass replacement going on due to the end of the stop-loss policy post Desert Storm. A lot of soldiers had been frozen in place here well beyond the end of their duty assignments. Half of my AIT graduating class at Fort Sam got shipped here, and half of that group were on the same plane with me. Three of us ended up in the same platoon at Camp Casey, which is just unheard of otherwise.

That's an interesting question. I haven't been to a hotel here in a while and haven't heard anything about it. I'll have to look into it. It's pretty standard now to order from kiosks in cafes and restaurants, and there are more staff-less shops popping up all the time, like places that sell prepackaged meals or mini convenience stores. And recently I saw a new staff-less cafe chain. I'd bet there are at least some hotels with self check-in.

I got a job on the Army base as soon as my enlistment officially ended. I had 90 days of terminal leave before that. I worked on base for most of the 90s.

To expand, that allowed me to maintain a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) visa. All I had to do was take some paperwork out to the immigration office, get some stamps and signatures, and I was done. It was good for a year, easily renewed. The immigration office even sent an agent to the base once a month to handle renewals. Had I gone straight to work off base, the easiest way would have been to line up a teaching job, leave the country to apply for a teaching visa at a Korean embassy somewhere, and then come back. But the teaching industry was the Wild West back then. Most language schools maintained a small number of legal teachers and hired the rest locally. People on tourist visas who would hop over to Fukuoka Japan and back every 90 days. It was so common that the airlines had someone waiting to redirect people from the arrival area to the departure area so they could fly back on the same plane. It was very easy for anyone who wanted to stay to do so. But anyone working on a tourist visa always had the threat of deportation hanging over them. I knew several people who got caught.

@@MikeFromKorea I was going to do the same thing when i was in Germany ,I worked Military Customs inspector with house hold goods, we worked with the transportation office and there were several civilians working too, anyway i was getting all the paperwork done needed was to get ok from transportation office and be working as a quality control investigator to check on the moving companies packing up Military personnel's property being sent stateside. then got homesick and went back home . to this day wished i had stayed.

​@@ameroz60 Staying abroad when you're homesick can make for a miserable experience. It's difficult to overcome. I've seen it here a few times. Going back was probably the right move. I'd been eager to get away from home, so it wasn't something I ever had to deal with.

No, not yet. I'd like to go hiking there one day.

감사합니다. 대전에는 몇 번 가본 적이 있습니다. 처음 간 것은 1992년 겨울이었어요. 보문산에 올라가서 꼭대기에 있는 식당에서 홍합을 먹었습니다. 나중에 아내와 함께 처제를 보러 대전을 방문했어요. 오랜만에 다시 가보지 않았네요

와 보문산을 깜빡했네요 저보다 대전을 더욱 잘아시는거같습니다 항상 행복하세요 한국을 사랑해주셔서 정말감사합니다.

Yeah, you'll find those on the lower floors of lot of older villas. I don't think you see them so much on newer buildings, but I haven't paid much attention. The crime rate here is low compared to other industrialized nations, but it does happen.

Me, too. Recently, I've finally been able to buy a handful of flavors here in Korea.

맞아요. 신도시들이 특히 가족들에게 더 나은 것 같아요. 하지만, 서울의 단점들에도 불구하고, 여기 사는 걸 정말 즐겨요.

제 영상에서 보여준 가게에는 보통 파는 편이에요. 그래도, 맞아요, 그 외에는 찾기가 정말 어려울 거예요.