Ride or die apps when living in Korea

Hey guys !

Something a bit more different this time. Korea, like rest of the world, is obsessed with smartphones. Koreans are all about making their lives more and more easier and comfortable and having everything you need easily accessible behind few simple clicks of your smartphone. After almost two years of living here I have slowly molded into this Korean society and become obsessed with some certain apps that make your life here soo much more comfortable and easier. So Today I wanted to share these apps with you !  

1. KAKAOTALK

 

I don't think there are many people who wouldn't know what kakaotalk is, but even though it's a pretty basic app it sure deserves its place on this list. Kakaotalk is basically Korea's version of Whatsapp, only ten times more popular. Everyone uses it, from young kids who own a phone to old korean ladies and gentlemen. It is the number one way to contact people here in Korea and completely 100% free. Koreans hardly ever text, and the reason to that is pretty clear. Also as a university student all the information between students and amongst our major's people moves through kakaotalk. We have our own kakao groups for pretty much everything and all important info you need to know is shared through this app. Even when booking an appointment with a real estate agent or a nail salon they provide you with their Kakao ID, not with their phone number.

2.KAKAOMETRO

 

Kakaometro is a relatively new subway app and let me tell you. It is THE BEST subway app I've ever used. I've been looking for a simple app like this for almost two years now and this just saved me. You just basically choose a station from the map, mark it as your starting point, then go and choose a destination and it will right away provide you with all the info you need: time, number of stops, how much it will cost, et cetera. I am obsessed with this. Kakao also has a kakaobus service that works the same way but with buses!! 

3. WHOSCALL

 

Whoscall is a caller ID app by Naver. It also lets you to easily block numbers and keep them blocked. For some reason in Korea, I'm not sure if it's because I have a prepaid number or if it happens to everyone, you get a loooot of spam calls and telemarketing calls. Whoscall will easily tell you if the call you're getting is spam and you can block it right away with one click. Another rule of thumb is that if the number doesn't start with 010 it's not someone's real phone number. As you can see in those pictures above, there are a lot of different spam calls that my whoscall has detected. I used to get some almost every day, now I get one or two per week. (I've been blocking so many of them during 2 years so it's slowly decreasing). 

4. NAVER, NAVER DICTIONARY & MAPS

 

Naver is Korean's own version of google. It has its own map services & dictionary, news from entertainment to sports, weather, blogs & forums, and overall just all kind of info about what's going on in Korea right now. If something big or significant happens here the chances are it's on naver's most searched top 10 list within the next 15 minutes. Naver is also used amongst Koreans all the time when searching for a restaurant or a cafe or a shop and is amazingly convenient at that, too. E.g on the picture on the right, I wrote "delicious restaurants in Hongdae" as a keyword and lots of opinions and blog posts popped up along with map and directions. 

 

Naver dictionary has been my dearest friend since the language school times last year. I use it daily, pretty much almost all the time. During classes, during movies, when with friends, when studying, you name it. It has an amazingly wide variety of words and example sentences and even some slang words. 

 

Naver maps is your typical map service and you could easily get around using the google version too but naver definitely has some cool quirks and additions. What I found really cool was that naver shows you the traffic situation by coloring the roads with green, yellow and red depending on how much traffic there is (pic on the right). I don't have a car so I don't know how I personally would benefit from it but I still found it pretty cool, haha! 

5. YOGIYO (+all other food delivery apps)

 

Yogiyo aka probably the most famous food delivery service in Korea. Based on your current location you can easily order anything from pizza, fried chicken to Korean or Japanese food and get it delivered right to your door (god bless). The best part? no delivery fees. Besides yogiyo some companies like Nenechicken or McDonald's have their own apps you can use as well. 

6. EVERYTIME 

 

Everytime is an amazing invention. It's a must if you study in a university in Korea. So what it is is a university community app. You log in with your own university student number and ID and then get access to your school's communities. There are forums, you can buy school books, create your own time table, discuss and follow the events happening around your campus, et cetera. What's convenient is that when doing your timetable the app already knows all the classes offered in your uni that semester and you only need to write the name of the subject and it will automatically know the class, teacher, time, etc, So it's super easy! Pretty much all Korean students use this so if you want to keep up with uni life this is a must~ 

7. GMARKET

 

Gmarket is getting a bigger place in my heart by every passing month in Korea. It is making my life so ridiculously easy I sometimes feel bad. I order everything from toilet paper to fruits from there and it's easy, fast, and relatively cheap too. Though sometimes stuff can be more expensive there so make sure to not to mindlessly just order stuff online because it seems cheaper. There are no limits as to what you can find from gmarket and everything usually ships in a couple of days. Even if you don't live in Korea I would recommend you to check this site out because they also ship overseas ! 

8. CGV

 

CGV is one of the movie theater chains here in Korea (In addition to Lotte Cinema & Megabox) and I have yet to encounter a Korean person who doesn't have this app in their phone. You can check the movies playing, timetables and also book tickets through this app which is pretty convenient here in Korea because there are a looot of people and tickets might sell out fast. Also well life is just a lot easier when you don't need to walk all the way to the movie theater but can just book a ticket for you and your friends while eating lunch or sitting at a cafe.

9. DONGSA

 

Dongsa, the savior of every struggling Korean learner! I was introduced to this app several years ago by a friend and it has come a long way with me. It's basically an app to help you figure out how to conjugate Korean verbs. You write the dictionary form of a verb you want and it will give you a loong list and explain how the verb is conjugated into each of its forms. This has helped me so much in learning Korean and I still sometimes turn to it when I am confused or need to check if I wrote the word correctly. Definitely a must to all you who are studying Korean!!

So here are some of my must-have apps when living in Seoul. I hope you guys found something from this list to add to your phone and make your life more convenient and fun or to help you with your Korean studies. Till the next time ! 

xx,

Julia

#박근혜하야하라

Hello beautiful people ! 

Last Saturday I went to Gwanghwamun with my friend Hyerim. There was a protest against the current president and more than 200 000 people gathered to peacefully protest against Park Geunhye. There has been a huge scandal surrounding her the last weeks because it turned out she has been giving out governmental information to a complete outsider, one of her close friends, who has also been writing her speeches for her and helping her to basically run the country. It has come to the point where less than 5% of Koreans support Park Geunhye anymore. There is going to be another protest today at Gwanghwamun and more than million people are expected to arrive as they even have buses from all over Korea bringing people to Seoul. So things are getting pretty serious over here and this all might as well end with her resigning for good. 

I have never been a part of a protest before and I'm not really interested in political affairs but I am really glad I went last week, even though I felt a bit awkward at first as, you know, I'm not even Korean. But I was hiding under my hood and fitting in pretty well with all other people holding candles and chanting for the president to resign. It was also one of the moments when I realized how much I love this country and being a part of the society here no matter how many small daily flaws there are (Let's face it, there are flaws in every damn country nowadays). Korean people have the absolute best team spirit. People come together and work for a better future for them and their kids and I think that is just beautiful, as opposed to Finland where people write an angry post on social media and then sulk at home how the government did this and that wrong again. From school festivals to political protests of thousands of people, people here know how to work together, support each other and create an amazing spirit. 

xx,
Julia

FALL x CHANGDEOKGUNG PALACE

Midterms are over so went to Changdeokgung palace to spend  a day as a tourist, snap some pictures and do some healing after several weeks of exams, speeches and essays. It was a good day. 

xx,
Julia

Warm fall smokey eye makeup look

Hi. I tried. Please be nice with your feedback I am beyond scared to publish this. LOL

xx,
Julia

Korea one-o'-one: Shopping for clothes in Korea

Hey guys!

This post has been on my to-do list for an embarrassingly long period so it's about the time I finish and published it. This is something pretty basic yet something a lot of people are curious about; Shopping for clothes in Korea. After living in Korea for almost 2 years here it is, your little shopping guide to shopping clothes in Seoul.

WHERE? 

Obviously there is plenty of places where you should head if you're looking for clothes but the most popular areas include, Hongdae, Idae, Myeongdong, Dongdaemun, Gangnam & Sinsa Garosu-gil. From expensive brand clothes to cheaper than a cup of coffee - type of road shops - there's something for everyone. 


HONGDAE - If you're into that hip hop / street fashion, Hongdae is where you should head. Hongdae has lots of tiny and relatively cheap stores that offer a wide variety of street fashion, shoes and accessories. You can also find the typical H&M & Forever21 from there as well. 

IDAE - Idae is an area with a very appreciated women's university right in the middle of it. So needless to say the area is designed to appeal for university girls. The tiny streets are lined with makeup stores and cheap shops for pretty and very cheap girly blouses, skirts, and high heels - a dream come true if you're a very girly girl. And even if you're not head over heels for lace and pink things it also has a variety of less princess-y clothes for those who like more edgy clothing (As myself). 

MYEONGDONG - Myeongdong is probably the most touristy place you can find from Seoul. But it also offers amazing shopping opportunities. It is probably my favorite go-to place when it comes to clothes shopping. It has lots of those cheap little boutiques but also big names like Adidas, H&M, Nike, Forever 21, Lotte department store, SPAO and MIXXO. Plus right outside Myeongdong there's a Migliore shopping center that has 2 or 3 floors full or little clothing stores. No matter what style of clothes you're looking for, you can't go wrong with Myeongdong. 

DONGDAEMUN - Dongdaemun is known for its two tall market type of shopping centers - 'Migliore' & 'Hello apm' which have more than 11 floors of cheap clothes, accessories and shoes waiting for you to bargain the prices even lower, and 'DOOTA' which is another shopping center but concentrates more on brand and luxury stores. Dongdaemun doesn't offer a big variety of clothing because market type of malls such as Hello apm and Migliore usually mostly offer the same clothes in every floor by different sellers who buy them from a wholesale market of some kind. But if you're in the mood for cheap, very Korean-style clothing OR looking for brand names Dongdaemun is a place that offers all that within 3 big malls all located next to each other. 

GANGNAM & SINSA, GAROSU-GIL -  When people mention shopping in Gangnam we automatically think of brand clothing and luxury names such as Louis Vuitton, MCM, A LAND, JOYRICH, Giorgio Armani... And usually that's very accurate. You can find all those from Gangnam and Sinsa and many people head there exactly for those stores. But Gangnam station at line 2 also has a huge underground shopping mall with cheap clothes that offer a nice balance to the expensive boutiques all around the stylish area. And if you head to Sinsa, garosu-gil you will also find relatively cheaper vintage stores and clothing and accessories - so Gangnam is not all about high fashion. COEX department store is also located in Gangnam and offers a wide variety of clothing from basics like ZARA to more expensive brands. 

HOW MUCH?

Like everywhere, also in Korea clothes can be really expensive. When shopping in those roadside shops a rule of thumb would be to never buy what you see first; a store around the corner might be selling the same thing for a lot cheaper price ! However these stores are already quite cheap; prices usually starting from 10 bucks. Like it is completely normal to walk to a roadside store and find t-shirts for 5 bucks and skirts for 10.  Thicker winter jackets start from like 50 000 won which is very cheap, at least on my scale. Keep in mind that the quality is also not the best and they don't tend to stay wearable for many years. Or even months, sometimes. A bigger clothing store chains like ZARA or H&M, I have realized, are quite expensive here in Korea. E.g a dress that costs 20 in Finland can cost over 30 bucks in Korea. So I try to avoid shopping in those stores. 

SIZES?

Many things in Korea are onesize or free sized. Especially when shopping in those smaller boutiques or market places in Idae, Hongdae or Dongdaemun, there's usually no size tags at all unless you're shopping for jeans or something. Dresses, shirts, skirts et cetera are usually, if not always, one size. So this does cause some problems sometimes for us not-tiny-160cm-asians. But I am definitely not the shortest (172cm) and smallest girl and I have yet to encounter a shirt that wouldn't have fitted me so I wouldn't worry about that too much. Jeans I don't even try buying from the roadside shops because they are tiny and very short. But from H&M and forever 21 etc I have no problems finding bottoms as well. If you're a short girl I'm sure you could find jeans from roadside shops as well. What might cause some problems though is fitting your girls on the chest area into some of the blouses if you have been particularly blessed on that part of your body, hahah! 

BARGAINING?

Bargaining used to be very common but I think it is slowly losing its importance ? Obviously you can't bargain when in regular stores but in places like Migliore or Helloapm bargaining is very important. When you ask for the price the seller most likely will try to overprice the product. Since it is a market place they pretty much decide the prices themselves and especially us foreigners seem an easy target to charge some extra. So never, EVER go "sure" and pay up. No. That's the most rookie mistake you could absolutely do. What I always so is I go "aahh..that's quite a lot..I'm gonna think about it and walk around a bit" and that usually does the trick and the sellers go "well I mean I can take off 5 dollars JUST FOR YOU very exclusive only for you!" If you wanna take your bargaining to the next level, after they tell you the new price try to go even lower like one or two dollars just for the heck of it. That should do it. Or you can be extra difficult and say you're gonna walk around a bit and check if you can find it for even cheaper. Most probably you will. Another trick that works quite well is telling the seller you saw this same item for a cheaper price somewhere else in the market so you're just gonna go buy it from there.

So there you go I hope this helped and will help some of you wondering about clothes shopping and where to do it here in Seoul ! If you have any further questions leave a comment down below and I will answer the best I can.

xx,

Julia