"Welcome to The Land of Big Smog" a Seoul Travel Page by jburron

Many thanks to Ian for suggesting I keep my more 'Seoul-centric' tips here and my more 'Korean' ones in my South Korea pages. At present I have 255 in total, split about 50/50--this will change, though as I am adding 2-3 a day lately (we'll see how long that lasts).

Here it is, where the air pollution is 2x that of New York...or any other developed country, as far as I know. But that's only if you go outdoors. If anything, Seoul is a city where you can get a lot done inside--what with the buildings, subways and such.

Funny thing, I never really noticed the smog here. You can see it on some days, but it's also in my hometown of Vancouver (Canada) too.

Some of the best weather, I think, is right here. Because 12 million people generate a lot of heat there is a permanent high pressure region over the city--which means that it only seems to rain/precip in the day here in July and August. The rest of the months it only rains at night. Now that is cool. Snow here is pretty sparce (especially compared to the rural areas of Korea) but there can be some wicked cold winds in December-February.

If you're here to work, there are lots of teaching jobs (you NEED at least a bachelor's degree to get one legally) and a few financial/office jobs.

Many things to do, places to go (see tips... more to come) so you really can't get bored here. Quite a few expats and a fairly nice community of 'em (depends who you meet, of course). Some Koreans like foreigners too and can speak ok English (but this is the exception) so within a little while most relatively extroverted people can get a little clique going here.

Subways are simple (my 20-yr-old cousin was here 4 days before using it solo) but you'll need good directions/landmarks for taxies (although they have translators via cell phone now).

Please enjoy these tips. I add a new one almost everyday...and I challenge you to read (and rate) every one of them.

I also have a blog at Hometown: Yeouido just in case you want a less organized version of how things work here. Be sure to sign on to the "blogarithm" email notifier and you'll get a friendly email every time I update my blog.