Why many of us are in Korea

[dansk]

How do you define tacky?  I don't find Seoul any tackier than Toronto.  It's full of big, modern, gaudy skyscrapers, too many cars, not enough history, and not enough green stuff.  (Granted, Toronto wins for green stuff.)

The only cities I've lived in that I actually enjoyed were in Europe.  Copenhagen is the nicest place on Earth to live, as far as I'm concerned, and if I could get Danish citizenship I'd take it in a heartbeat.  (Unfortunately just speaking the language isn't enough to qualify.)  Bremen was also pretty wonderful.  Clean and green, interesting architecture and history, efficient public transportation, nice relaxed vibe, heaven on Earth for cyclists.

The key though, is that both of those places are around or under a million people.  Yes, granted, I'd prefer Paris or London to Seoul, but I still wouldn't want to live in any of the above.

Sorry, as far as I'm concerned, big cities are big cities are big cities.  I grew up on farms, I'll never be happy in noisy, chaotic places.

[Frozencat99]

I would trade everything I have and more to be able to apprentice under Nils Christie in Oslo. Unfortunately, that isn't exactly a possibility right now and he's getting up there in age, so it might just be yet another missed opportunity.

[wrinklebump]

take a holiday in singapore or hong kong youll be amazed what a big city done right can be like. i too grew up in the countryside, and while i favor it, that doesnt mean i can give korea a free pass on its garbage-strewn urban moonscapes.

seoul isnt as tacky as it is unrelentingly ugly. the new towers being built in busan, however, are as ghastly a spectacle as youll ever see. just a garish nightmare only the warped korean architectural mind could dream up. and that abortive, doomed riverfront project in ggd is nearly as offensive.

[dansk]

take a holiday in singapore or hong kong youll be amazed what a big city done right can be like. i too grew up in the countryside, and while i favor it, that doesnt mean i can give korea a free pass on its garbage-strewn urban moonscapes.

The only big city I've been to that didn't give me a tense, edgy, claustrophobic feeling was Tokyo.  Somehow the Japanese managed to create little oases of sanity mixed in among the absurdity that made it a nice enough place to be.

The pictures I've seen of Hong Kong frighten me, I can't imagine ever visiting that place.

seoul isnt as tacky as it is unrelentingly ugly. the new towers being built in busan, however, are as ghastly a spectacle as youll ever see. just a garish nightmare only the warped korean architectural mind could dream up. and that abortive, doomed riverfront project in ggd is nearly as offensive.

Yep, I'll grant you that.  Korea's ugly enormous concrete box fetish is only paralleled by the Soviets'.

[ubjustin]

it gets way too humid in HK and the laws are too uptight in Singapore. 

Can't really comment on architecture/buildings because I don't really care about that stuff,  but you gotta admit the night scenery by the Han looks pretty. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/studyhard111/6270040316/

[Frozencat99]

Hong Kong is done right? I must have missed that on my holiday there. While the subway was certainly accessible, the ugly downtown was only topped by the shoebox motel room I managed to land. Those things make Korean love motels seem like villas.

Beijing and Shanghai are quite nice for large cities, as is Tokyo, but they're the only three I've ever rested in pleasantly. The rural vibe, alongside the cost of living, are unparalleled in quality. I'm in Korea to save money and pay off loans, as well as for the experience, and I'm in rural Gangwon-do to make sure that happens. We still have wildlife, after all :3

[wrinklebump]

 :o

if you managed not to have a blast in hk, what did you do wrong? its clean, easy to get around, diverse, and positively thumping at night. only nyc offered a demonstrably superior holiday experience, but i knew more people there too

i can see how singapore might offend those who prefer their big towns to be a bit crazy, but as an example of city planning it shines brightly. and its plenty of fun if you make a few friends. bloody everyone speaks english after all

[jimmyeatworldwar]

despite a lot of wildly differing opinions, theres some kind of rough consensus that the first couple of things you mentioned are pretty great. cheap food, cheap vice, cheap public transport. but for some people, i think -- and this includes me -- a quiet, secluded spot somewhere in a place like the phillipines is far, far preferable to the deafening sound and fury of a 'tech' capital like seoul.

when the appliance shops roll out the dancing girls in insufferable costumes vacantly wobbling to kpop noise turned up to 11, the only thing i can think of is how much money it would take to build a hermitage in the mountains somewhere.

So move to middle-of-nowhere Gangwon, like I did.

Have you been to Manila?  That city has just as much craziness as Seoul, albeit fewer LCD TVs.  Big cities are big cities, period.  I find Korea's rural areas just as appealing as those in the Philippines, and Seoul and Manila equally ugly and offensive to the senses.

i love rural korea, much as i loved rural america. but big cities are not big cities. seoul is polluted, ugly and overcrowded because its bootstrap development was incompetently (rather, completely un-) managed. manila also fits that description, as do most large metropolitan areas that grew wildly during rapid economic expansion in the 80s and 90s. i personally find busan even more repulsive than seoul, especially in the summertime, and daegu is almost as filthy.

stay a few months in munich, sydney, hong kong, singapore or vancouver and get back with me. night and day. its like, hey this is a huge city but they made it not disgusting. i also found nyc surprisingly tolerable, but i was only there for a while. also nobody talks about atlanta but i think its kinda amazing, you drive into the town and youre confronted with this forest; its one of the most well-treed places ive ever been to.

hong kong? not disgusting? where did you live mate, in the Ritz?
dunno if you've been staying in itaewon the whole time. Sure, some areas in Seoul are overcrowded but its a city with 10million people. Lets see,

munich's pop- 2 mil
sydney's pop- around 5 mil
vancouver? - not even around 1 mil.

gangnam gu seocho gu and joong gu and several others have all very relaxed atmosphere. i find it it very pleasant to run and walk (also meaning its very clean and safe) Hangang river, for example provides an excellent place after work to relax..
try an early morning/ late evening joggin next to the Han,  I don't think the experience can be matched by living in an another city. 

[wrinklebump]

when i stayed in seoul it was in sooyoo, which is mostly residential with some light commercial development. and i liked partying at a friends joint near the river, but it looks like a third world casino at night.

different strokes, i suppose. i guess it just comes down to this - out of all the major cities ive stayed in ive been the least impressed by seoul. im a pretty gregarious dude - i get out, make friends pretty easily. i do jiu jitsu so i tend to meet lots of different people. but seoul just didnt do it for me. i never had a 'wow' moment there, i guess.

[jimmyeatworldwar]

when i stayed in seoul it was in sooyoo, which is mostly residential with some light commercial development. and i liked partying at a friends joint near the river, but it looks like a third world casino at night.

different strokes, i suppose. i guess it just comes down to this - out of all the major cities ive stayed in ive been the least impressed by seoul. im a pretty gregarious dude - i get out, make friends pretty easily. i do jiu jitsu so i tend to meet lots of different people. but seoul just didnt do it for me. i never had a 'wow' moment there, i guess.

which city with over a 10 mil pop has a huge river in the middle with mountains and other water streams flowing through the place? i can't think of any. isn't that already a wow factor?
but yeah different strokes perhaps

[Jrong]

^
What do the huge river and mountains look like? Industrialized, concrete-ized, recently re-forested, not that beautiful. Everything looks like it was built haphazardly, no pattern or guiding aesthetic sense, just this image-conscious need to prove that Seoul is a modern city by building lots and lots of stuff. It's modern. And ugly. Itaewon is OK, some parts, and Insadong, but most of Seoul...

[Frozencat99]

I don't know how you can describe Seoul's aesthetic problems in one sentence and then (somewhat) compliment Itaewon in the next.

[hilarity ensues]

I don't know how you can describe Seoul's aesthetic problems in one sentence and then (somewhat) compliment Itaewon in the next.

OK is not a compliment, and people are allowed to say that there are things about a place that they don't like.
You don't need to constantly rush to Korea's defense, and really, doing so only makes your other opinions seem less credible.

[Frozencat99]

I don't know how you can describe Seoul's aesthetic problems in one sentence and then (somewhat) compliment Itaewon in the next.

OK is not a compliment, and people are allowed to say that there are things about a place that they don't like.
You don't need to constantly rush to Korea's defense, and really, doing so only makes your other opinions seem less credible.

I'm not exactly sure how implying that Itaewon shares the same abhorrent architectural, horticultural, and geographical choices as Seoul is defending Korea. What about that statement screams defense to you?

I suppose if you heavily load my comment with something that isn't there and ignore the rest of my posts in this topic, I'd come across that way.

[Jrong]

Frozen, what the hell are you doing?

I just said that while there are parts of Seoul that are decent-looking or pretty, in general, it is ugly to me. Not sure how you can misinterpret that and try to find something in that statement to nit-pick at.

[livzy]

I know an accountant who loves being an accountant. He said when he was training "It just clicked with me".

I came here because I'd spoken to a few people who'd been here and didn't have anything bad to say about the place. I agree with them, there's nothing here that particularly grates me at all.  :)

[Frozencat99]

Frozen, what the hell are you doing?

I just said that while there are parts of Seoul that are decent-looking or pretty, in general, it is ugly to me. Not sure how you can misinterpret that and try to find something in that statement to nit-pick at.

"It's modern. And ugly."

"Itaewon is okay."

One of the more modernized and Westernized areas in the city that you just described as ugly is differentiated how? It isn't nit-picking, it's asking what logic you were using when you typed those sentences out at the same time.

If I could take all of you for a visit to CFS Alert, I would, because though the station itself isn't much to look at, the way the area hasn't changed and the wildlife that surrounds it is awe-inspiring.

[Jrong]

There are some hilly areas in Itaewon where you get some pretty nice views. You can also find some nice areas on the outlying parts of the metropolis (Suwon/Yongin) that are modernized consciously (i.e. building with aesthetics and natural surroundings in mind, not just throwing up stuff everywhere). As a whole, however, the Seoul-metro area is ugly as hell. How is that hard to comprehend or are you seriously just wasting time trying to find something to nitpick about?

[wrinklebump]

a magical place, where people argue about everything, all the time.
- gus haynes

[Frozencat99]

Wow, see. If you had said "Itaewon can be okay, it has some hilly areas with some nicer scenic views as compared to the rest of Seoul" in the first place, that would have been clear.

Unlike when you said "Seoul is ugly but Itaewon is okay!"

Call it nitpicking all you want, but if you call a city ugly (especially for trying to be modern) and then immediately afterward describe a modernized area of that city differently, expect to be called out on your nonsense.

Meanwhile, I'll stick to being amazed by http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4074/4917345620_b0ba7aba9f_b.jpg and dream about working there post-Korea. I'm basically here to save enough money to work there before grad school, anyhow.