Update 4/3/2025 Cherry blossom season has begun!
Cherry blossoms will start to bloom on Jeju Island around March 22 and then work their way up the Korean Peninsula. They’ll start to bloom in Seoul around April 1 and reach peak bloom there by April 8.
For those in Seoul, Yeouido is a famous place to see the cherry blossoms.
Cherry blossom – 벚꽃 beot-kkeot
It’s no wonder that Melting Soul is a championship burger maker. Look at how fun this is.
Located in MyeongDong’s Lotte Department Store food court (B1 level), this is a fun an inexpensive burger to try. They offer both a yellow melting cheese and white-ragu melting cheese among other more standard type burgers. Here’s a walk through their full menu.
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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.
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.
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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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:
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:
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.
