Monthly Archives: March 2025

Seoul named as best solo-travel destination.

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For 2025, TripAdvisor has rated Seoul as the World’s Top Solo-Travel Destination. The score is based on “a high volume of above-and-beyond reviews and opinions from the Tripadvisor community over a 12-month period. Out of 8 million listings, fewer than 1% achieve this milestone.”

Seoul is clean, safe, has accessible public transportation (subway, bus), and has many tourist-friendly destinations to see.

We have written quite a few articles on Seoul that you can find here. As the Ambassador Team leader for Gangnam District’s Public Relations team in 2011, I wrote a series of 25+ posts in Gangnam News about destinations in Seoul’s Gangnam District. And an interview in Korea Herald about Gangnam, another here.

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Does one size fit all?

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The topic of free size clothing, where “one size fits all”, came up in a recent Korea Herald article. The discussion was about the Korean fashion industry squeezing all female customers into one size group in order to reduce costs and logistics in production.

A Korean “free-size” is intended to cover the Korean S-M-L range, though it more closely equates to a U.S. women’s size Small.

프리사이즈 – peuri-saije

We wrote several vocabulary-filled articles on fashion and clothing.

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Customers turn to all-you-can eat/drink to save money.

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As food and drink prices soar, Koreans are cutting back on alcoholic drinks at restaurants. Drinking establishment sales declined 1.7% in Q4 2024, according to the Chosun Daily According to the same article, some restaurants are turning to all-you/can eat/drink options in order to drive business.

Nomihodai (飲み放題) has been a popular option for the all-you-can-drink add-on at Japanese bars, restaurants, and karaoke shops for many years. This allows patrons to consume an unlimited number of drinks, from a special menu, for a fixed priced, and for a fixed amount of time. It’s a cost effective way for consumers to enjoy an evening out.

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Foreigners in Seoul account for 5% of total population.

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2.65 million foreigners now live in Seoul, about 5% of the total population of Korea. According to data public by the Ministry of Justice, This includes both long-term residence and short-term living foreigners. Half of those are foreigners in their 20s and 30s.

The percent generally decreases with age, with those over 60 representing 12.9% of all foreigners. The total number of international students has also increased steadily.

Our two-part series on skilled foreigner workers:

Part one and Part two.

And our three-part series on studying a foreign language abroad:

Part one and Part two and Part three.

Lastly, our two-part series on studying Korean:

Part one and Part two.

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San Francisco Bay Area food – BaekJeong BBQ

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BaekJeong translates to “butcher” in Korean and is a popular US west Coast Korean BBQ chain focused on high-quality meats. Founded by Korean TV host Kang Ho-Dong (강호동) in LA in 2012, the now 7 location chain expanded to the Bay Area in 2023. Been meaning to get there as the weekend wait can be hours, especially during the first year there.

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