Top 8 essential online services for foreigners in Korea
South Korea is globally known as a “Miracle of the Han River”. Although this name is well deserved, it is gradually fading with the time, being substituted by numerous new not less miraculous achievements of the Southern part of Korean peninsular. One of them is a ubiquitous Internet penetration, which was introduced and developed in astonishingly short period of time. As the result, Korea has now one of the highest percentage of internet users, which amounted to 84.8% of the population in 2013 and the number is ever growing.
Therefore, you are very welcome to take advantage of Internet services provided by Koreans, and here is a list of top 8 most useful links, which will make it easier to adapt as a foreigner in Korea. All eight sites are supporting English versions, so you can easily use it without any worries!
Let’s start?
1. endic.naver.com/
Naver is the most famous and widely used online source in Korea, which in fact is dominant content service operator, including email and news as well as search portal. It in fact serves as a kind of substitute for google. For English speakers, however, the most useful function would be its awesome online dictionary. As Korean language learner, I have searched for different online dictionaries for quite a while and I haven’t yet found any dictionary which could compete with naver. Its translation service is, of course, way better than the translate.google.com, being much more precise, accurate and accompanied with numerous examples of context-based usage. Highly recommended to everyone searching for a good online dictionary. There are also French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese versions of the site.
2. kakao.com/talk
If you’re in Korea (or even before you come here), you most probably already have kakaotalk, as it is the first “must-have” app you need to download to your cellphone here. As South Korea is the most wired country with the highest broadband connection rate in the world, you will, most probably, use kakaotalk more often than any other application (in your life:)). There is also a PC version of kakaotalk, which reminds skype interface and functions a lot, except for it contains all your Korean contacts from your mobile phone, so you can also download the software on your laptop. It is very convenient, if you need to send or recieve some heavier files.
3. craigslist.co.kr/
For those who are looking for a part-time job, I highly recommend to check out this source, which provides with hundreds of freshly published job-position posts daily. Just send an email with your CV attached (if required) to the most attractive ad and voila! The answers usually don’t make you wait longer than a day (according to my personal experience, most of the company’s HR office representatives either answer within a couple of hours if interested, or the answer doesn’t come at all, but the latter variant is less frequent) and this service eases the demanding and time-consuming process of searching for, let’s say, waiter position in Itaewon or Dongdaemun in person. The range of jobs is quite diverse: apparent majority of posts are adressed to English language teachers for kids and teens, but you can find more flexible jobs, like floor staff, waiter, bartender, sales representative, interpreter, even football match commentator. There are also some weird ads, like some kind of an entertainer in karaoke bars for young ladies, but they are quite apparent in intentions, so I wouldn’t have recommended to have any contact with such employers.
4. ziphousing-korea.com
This is quite a new start-up online Housing Consultant agency with a very big potential. The reason for it is the fact that so many foreigners face problems with finding an accommodation in Seoul and Zip Housing helps foreigners to find the right one according to the clients’ personal preferences and expectations. They will negotiate with the landlords (excellent for those, who don’t possess very high level of Korean language skills), provide with translating service, and will give general advice concerning the real estate in Korea.
5. meetup.com/
If you’d like to join a community like hiking or soccer club, or perhaps just find new friends and acquaintances with shared interests, or maybe hang out with some cool people, register on meetup! This online service is designed specially for foreigners and is an easy and fun way to build a wide network of people. Many locals use this portal as well in order to get acquainted with foreigners and perhaps practice some English, so you can actually help people by joining.
6. clubinkorea.com
Korea is famous for its night life: numerous restaurants, karaoke bars, clubs. The latter are exceptionally good in Seoul, but one night out might be very pricy, so if you want to enter many clubs a night and prevent yourself from getting broke very fast, visit clubinkorea.com. The name of the site is self-explanatory: here you can find many ways to avoid entrance fees for partner-clubs in Hongdae, Gangnam or Itaewon in Seoul and still get best out of that. You can also find a list of recommendable parties and watch a video on how to enter the clubs for free.
7. gmarket.co.kr
If naver is Korean google, then gmarket is Korean eBay. It is the most popular online shopping mall in Korea, with thousands of eager bidders, buyers and sellers, all brought together on the large international online market. The service is running since 2000 and has an auction business model, where people buy and sell goods and services, including collectibles, clothes, furniture, electronics, vehicles.
8. 11st.co.kr
The site suggests quite a wide range of Korean brand products from 8 different categories, including clothes, electronics, sports equipment, books and even groceries. (If you know Korean, you can check out danawa.com. This site is widely used by youth in Korea in order to compare the prices for electronic goods, like laptops, digital cameras, cellphones, etc.)
I hope these links will enable you to have more on- and offline choices in Korea and also will help in adapting to the new circumstances. Be ready to use the advantage of free wi-fi hotspots and stay connected with the help of Korean online services.