Here are mine:

In no particular order:

10. coex at 1am when the late movie gets out and the entire rest of the mall is abandoned. . . but you can wander around wherever you like

9. Pukhakdong, the neighbourhood between inwang mountan and pukak mountain, and the trail up inwang mountain, as accessed through the neighbourhood on the north side of inwang mountain.

8. new year’s eve at boshingak

7. lantern festival at Buddha’s birthday; especially tapgol park after dark that night.

6. either a pro gamers (online gaming) league competition, or a b-boy competition

5. (for tourists) the seoul city bus tour (for people living here) the performances and demnostration in Namsangol folk village on Chusok, or at least the traditional performance in Jung-dong theater beside Deoksugung.

4. the look on a Korean’s face when YOU ask THEM “where are you from?”

3. at least two UNESCO world heritage sites located outside of Seoul

2. the Korean food at a busy restaurant where you are the only person there under 60.

1. Jongmyo Park on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in summer, spring, or fall: go dancing with the old people, and watch them just hanging out.

ten things to do:

10. attend a protest, whether you agree or not (but if you disagree, shut up, and stay away from the anti-american ones, dummy.)

9. Speak gibberish to a person who wants a free English lesson. . . bonus points if you’re approached whilst naked, in a sauna.

8. Get a letter to the editor or an op-ed column published in Korea Herald, Korea Times, Joongang Daily (inside the International Herald Tribune), or a magazine.

7. Dance with an ajumma. Dance LIKE an ajumma. Boat tours are somehow the best place to do this.

6. Skinny dip in a pond on a hiking mountain trail, when you’re really effing hot.

5. Get away with something because you’re not from around here.

4. In fresh snow, slide down the steep hills in Olympic Park’s Mongchontosong Fortress on your butt. Be careful about where you do this, because some of the hillsides have jutting branches. Try the ones towards the south side, in the direction away from the Han River.

3. Play in the water fountains, either in City Hall Plaza, or Seoul Forest.

2. play gostop or yutnori with a korean family, and/or learn three Korean drinking games (sam yuk ku is a good start, as is kong kong chil bang!; at least one must involve variations on rock, scissor, paper)

1. learn to read hangul. preferably in your first month.

But ya know, by “do” a Korean, I don’t just mean sex. Sex itself can be informative. I remember my first Korean girlfriend and in the throes of passion she put her arms over her head and I had to stop because I was so fascinated by her underarm hair. (Most Korean women shave neither their pits or their legs during winter.) If you’re a single man or woman, then I highly recommend dating or going out with a Korean. I love Korean culture, and being in a relationship with a Korean definetely has opened my mind and allowed me to experience Korean modern culture and society a lot more. Most western women are very dismissive of Korean men, but they can be some of the sweetest boyfriends you’ll ever meet.

#10 Experience other countries’ cultures. I am from a provincial capital in Canada, but if you live anywhere where there is a large foreigner population Korea can truly be really metropolitan. I agree with Joe when he said many podcasts back that this is truly the hub of the world. Anything you could possibly want is here in Korea. I have discovered the joys of Uzbekii, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican, Turkish, Pakistanni, Irish, and Italian(fusion) foods here. One day I’ll work up he nerve to try some of the African or Australian restaurants. Korean food is frikkin awesome, but why only limit yourself to Korean food while you’re here?

#9 Tour Korea. I’m sick and tired of one-year contract holders who spend their one year here “working” and drinking and can’t wait for their vacations to go explore some “real” Asian culture. I’ve lived here for 8 years and have spent my vacations either back home in Canada or exploring Korea. Don’t be dismissive of Korea. Just cause you work for a hogwan and get drunk every weekend at the expat bar doesn’t mean you have experienced Korea. Explore! Be brave! Spend that next week off in Korea and see what it has to offer, because it really does have a lot.

#8 Show the newbie Korean culture. Not the expat bar. Not where you think the best kal-bi or sam-gyup-sal restaurant is. Show them your favorite museum. Show them your favorite mountain, temple, park, palace, or view.

#7 Eat where Koreans eat and drink.

#6 The War Memorial/Museum near Itaewon.

#5 Take a Korean on a tour of Itaewon/Ansan Asiantown/wherever Koreans think of as dirty and nasty because a gazillion years ago some foreigner killed a Korean there. Show a Korean why you love that place.

#4 Hike a mountain. Get off of the paved two-lane road that takes you to the top. In fact, if in any way it is possible for you to drive to the top of the mountain, pick the one next to it! Take the smallest most overgrown path you can find, or blaze your own!

#3 Dongdaemoon flea market.

#2 Soju hangover

And the number one thing to do in Korea???

: a Korean.
(thanks Jenn!)

My feeling on this is that the Seoul gov’t official had little grasp of world cuisine. The world’s best foods (ex: American soul food, French provincial peasant cuisine, Italian pizza) come from people living off of nasty scraps and making something good from them. Budae Jjigae is a 20th century example of the creativity of hunger.

I’ll bet in thirty to a hundred years it would be considered high cuisine, like all the other traditional peasant foods in the world have become.

See, it’s not just about a reminder of Koreans being poor. It’s about Koreans being a hair width from starving to death, destitute and entirely stripped of anything but that last shred of will that is required to live in such a condition.

If you tell most Koreans, especially younger ones, that this is how their precious budaejjigae started, they would probably deny it. And it may very well be that they were never told about it and couldn’t conceive it. But the older ones wouldn’t. Or at least, they would deny it but you could tell they were lying. I for one am glad that my grandparents were resourceful enough to keep my father fed and alive.

So next time you guys gather around a merrily boiling pot of budaejjigae, remember its even humbler, untold origin behind its unglamorous (to be charitable) official beginning.

On a similar note, I hear that British are rather fond of Spam even now.