John Morgan Recruiting

The best people to talk to first are your co-workers who may have gone through some of the same difficulties that you have and can give helpful advice. You can also contact us anytime with any questions or concerns that you have about living in Korea.

The two biggest holidays of the year are Sollal (New Year) and Chuseok (Thanksgiving). During these times it can be difficult to travel out of the country unless you make your arrangements well in advance as it is the peak time. Usually during these two big holidays Koreans travel to their hometowns. This makes road travel quite difficult as traffic jams can last for hours. The best way to travel during these holidays is by train. However, make your reservations early as train tickets go fast.

There are several other holidays throughout the year including Independence Day, Constitution Day, Children’s Day and Memorial Day. North American holidays like Christmas and New Years are also celebrated. You will receive these holidays off throughout the year. For more description of these holidays check out our section on Korea here.

Very easy. Options to stay in touch include international phone cards or through the internet. Internet access is extremely cheap and widely available everywhere in Korea. Korea has one of the highest rates of Internet use per capita in the world. Your school will have internet access that you can use. Also, if you use the computer a lot and plan to buy a computer in Korea (there are great deals available), you can request internet access in your apartment and your school can help set it up. Computer rooms are available on almost every block for the low price of about $1 per hour. Through the internet you can keep in constant contact through program like MSN messenger and Skype, which allows you to call internationally for very cheap.

Another option is to purchase an international calling card. These cards are very cheap and give great rates for calling back home, usually pennies a minute (although Skype is still cheaper). They are available at any convenience store or newsstand. Do not call internationally through normal phone service as this is much more expensive. Use the phone cards or Skype. One $10 phone card will provide you with hours of phone time with your friends and family back home. As a service of Morgan Recruiting, we provide you with a free $10 phone card in your New Orientation Package to help ease your transition into the country.

Korean has four distinct seasons. You will hear this from Koreans regularly. Fall and spring are the best seasons. The winters tend to be cold and dry. The winters are colder than they are in my hometown of Victoria, but not as cold as other places in Canada. It is a good idea to pack warm winter clothes. It doesn’t snow that much in the winter though, usually once or twice per winter. Usually in the winter, there are three cold days, followed by 3-4 mild days where the weather is cool but pleasant. I find the winters here much more pleasant than in Victoria, where it is rain day after day. Winters are usually cool, blue skies. There are also some decent ski resorts around Korea if you are interested in skiing or snowboarding.

Spring temperatures usually range from between 15-25 degrees and the spring is a nice time to do a lot of outdoor activities. Summer, particular July and August are the hottest months and are also quite humid. Also, in late June/early July the monsoon season begins, so for about 2-3 weeks there is heavy, continuous rainfall.

Fall, the best season in Korea, is cool and pleasant and a nice relief after the hot summer. The temperatures are similar to those in the spring. This is a good time of year for outdoor activities as well and many people head to the mountains for the scenery which is quite nice.

Yes, very safe. Statistics will show that violent crime in Korea is significantly lower than in Western countries. Even in a large city like Seoul, it is very safe to walk around at night. I have lived here for more than 10 years and never felt threatened walking around at night. The type of crime that does occur is petty theft and you may want to take care of your belongings. Make sure that you lock your door before leaving home.

The subway systems are efficient, fast and cheap. They also give all of their announcements about stations and transfers in Korean and English making it very easy to use. I was able to use the Korean subway easily from my first day in Korea. You should note that the subway in Korea shuts down around midnight so if you are staying out later than that, you will need to take a cab (but they are cheap).

Korean busses present a bit more of a challenge. Most busses do not have information displayed in English, so at least in the beginning, you will need help from one of your Korean co-workers. It helps to remember the bus number and have your destination written down to show the bus driver.

Taxis are quite cheap and you will probably use them regularly. Write down your destination in Korean in case you have any difficulty communicating with the driver. Also, be careful – do not take the black cabs. Those are deluxe taxis and the price is double that of a regular taxi (for essentially the same service).

Nowadays, with the development of the KTX (high-speed train) most of the areas of Korea are interconnected and it is quite easy and cheap to get around Korea by train or bus.

There are several places where you can study Korean. These programs range from full-time university programs to part-time (morning or evening) study programs. For people who work the part-time programs, which run in the morning or the evening, are the ones that they can usually fit into their schedule. I find that being able to speak Korean opens up a lot of possibilities and makes the experience of living in Korea more enjoyable.

The writing system is quite easy to learn and can be learned in a day. To get you started, we offer all our teachers a beginner Korean book in our New Teacher Orientation Package to welcome you to Korea. Being able to speak even a few phrases in Korean when you go to the store or a restaurant will bring you closer to Koreans. We have included links to all of the Korean programs available in Korea in our links section.

Yes, especially in the big cities it is quite easy to get around in English. Most people speak some English as they have been learning it for a few years. The people that usually do not speak English well are cab drivers and security guards. Therefore, when you take a cab (and you probably will as they are a lot cheaper than in North America), it is a very good idea to have your home/school address written on a card in Korean to be able to show to drivers when you first come to Korea. When I first came to Korea, I just gave them the card and they took me there. As I progressed in Korean, I no longer needed the card and the cab drivers were a good source of Korean practice. Street signs are in English as is all of the subway information and announcements are given in Korean and English on the subway. As you get further away from the big cities into the countryside, the level of English goes down and you may find it more difficult to communicate.

I find that Koreans are quite friendly but a little shy at first usually because of speaking English. This shyness is overcome fairly quickly once they get to know you. Koreans love to go out for dinner and drinking so they will often invite you to go out with them. Koreans often like to do group activities to bond with one another. Koreans always appreciate foreigners who make an effort to learn a bit of the language.

I love Korean food as it is delicious, healthy and inexpensive. A lot of the most popular dishes among the foreign teachers are the meat dishes – bulgogi, kalbi, samgyopsal. Koreans eat a kind of barbeque where the food is cooked on a small grill and the meat is cooked right in front of you. This style of eating is my favorite in Korea and it is inexpensive, so I do it at least once a week. When you order food in a restaurant, it comes with a lot of side dishes (free of charge) that are usually vegetables (kimchi, potatoes) and can be refilled as often as you like. There are excellent soups and stews like Kalbi soup and Kimchi stew.

Vegetable dishes such as Bibimbap are also popular. However, you should know that Koreans are big meat eaters and it can be hard to be a vegetarian in Korea. Most Korean foods contain some kind of meat product and even the soups are cooked in a meat broth. If you are a vegetarian, you may need to ask the restaurant to not add any meat to your dish. However, there are a growing number of vegetarian options in Korea with the addition of a couple of vegetarian restaurants in Seoul. Check out the links section here for vegetarian options in Korea.

Finally, some people find some of the Korean dishes spicy (like kimchi for example) so if you do not like spicy food, learn to ask in Korean “Is it spicy?”. (Please use the free Korean text that we include in our Orientation Pack).

When I first came to Korea, I really missed being able to watch my hockey team. I was stuck listening to them on the radio. However, nowadays with several sites hosting the games on the internet, satellite TV and the occasional sports bar, watching hockey has become more of a possibility for me. I also miss some foods sometimes, although with CostCo now being available in Korea, I am able to buy more of the foods that I had previously missed.

I love the food and as dining out is a lot cheaper than in Canada, I go out for dinner with my family quite regularly. I like the fall when the weather gets cooler and the leaves change color. I also like being able to travel around the country easily in my free time. I also like being able to walk around places like Seoul Forest or the Han River.

It’s getting easier and easier to find whatever it is that you are looking for in Korea. When I first came to Korea, the selection for food outside of Korean food was fairly limited. Now all of the fast food restaurants are here including McDonald’s, Burger King, Krispy Kreme, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, KFC, Popeyes, TGIFridays and so on. In addition, over the past few years the number of international restaurants has increased a lot in Seoul with Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Greek, French and Italian. Also, with the opening of CostCo in Korea, it is much easier to get a lot of the snack foods and items that you would back home. That is where I usually go shopping to get some of the foods I miss (like cheese).

Besides food, it is also easy to get other things in Korea. There are several excellent bookstores in Korea that cater to foreigners and have most of what you are looking for. I have included the contract information for these stores in the links section. All kinds of electronics are available (and usually cheaper) at the electronics market in Seoul. Some of the sizes for clothes and shoes were a bit hard to find in the past but now there are several stores which cater to the large and tall. My shoe size (285 in Korea) used to be much harder to find, but now I can find my size much easier. A lot of the stores in Itaewon, which cater to foreigners, carry larger sizes for clothes and shoes.

Seoul is the capital with a population close to 12,000,000 people. It is a city always on the go full of excitement and high-rise buildings. There are lots of great places to shop, lots of international restaurants and tons of activities to do including hiking at the nearby mountains, walking along the Han River or visiting the local markets or temples. Busan, the next largest city, with a population of around 4 million, also has similar attractions to Seoul. It also gets many international events and is close to several excellent beaches and is well-known for its beachside resorts.

There are several cities in Korea, such as Daegu, Daejeon, Kwangu and Kionju, which are all linked by KTX (speed train) and also offer many things to see and do. These smaller cities are usually a little more relaxed than Seoul or Busan and have a more laid-back feel. For more information on these cities, check out the city guides in our links section here.

There are also small cities where there may only be a few foreign teachers. The pace in these small cities is much more relaxed and Western influences are much harder to find. These cities are much better for learning about traditional Korea and are also better for learning Korean. These cities, small and large, are all inter-connected by train and bus systems, making it quite easy for a teacher in Seoul to visit all around Korea or a teacher in the countryside to visit Seoul whenever they wanted.

This largely depends on your preferences. A lot of applicants wish to be placed in Seoul or Busan, big busting cities that have a lot going on. These cities get all the concerts, sporting events and have international restaurants. However, many applicants also prefer to be placed in smaller cities to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city and experience more nature and fresh air and a little more of traditional Korean culture.

With an improved national transportation system including the high-speed KTX train linking many of the cities across Korea, and Korea being a small country, it is quite easy to get around from place to place. All of the cities have ex-pat communities where foreign teachers with similar interests (like hockey) can get together and share their interest. Every place has its pros and cons depending on what you are looking for.

Check out our links page here where we have included links to all things Korean including city guides and subway guides, popular places to visit, popular activities to do in Korea, sites for teachers, places to learn Korean and much more.

We hear this question quite a bit. My answer would be that Korea really does have something for everyone. As Korea is over 70% mountains, there is some great hiking in the country. There are also some nice coastal resorts and beaches around the country. A lot of people frequent beaches down in the southern part of Korea around Busan or Cheju Island. They have nice swimming and great scenery.

Being a small country with a very good interconnected train system, it is quite easy to travel around the country for a reasonable price. There are lots of historical sites and places like Andong or Kionju are good for visiting some of the traditional Korean temples and villages. If you like the excitement of big city life, Seoul or Busan offer everything a big city has to offer – concerts, nightlife, movie theaters, amusement parks and international cuisine. The night scenery in Seoul and Busan is quite nice all lit up. In short, there is no shortage of fun things to do in Korea.