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Long time since last update, and exciting autumn ahead!
Me and my girlfriend had planned trip to Japan+Korea for quite a while and we finally bought flight tickets! There were some recommendations that both spring and autumn are great time to visit Japan, so I pushed our vacation from summer to October this year.
Currently our plan is to stay one week in Seoul, the first week of October. According to Liquipedia, GSL season 3 ends on 4th of October so we might be there during that week! We're thrilled to see some matches live in Seoul, I hope everything goes well and we can attend either PL or GSL! Other than that, Korean BBQ (Pulgogi) is something I've wanted to try since almost all foreigners say it's good. :D
We've been studying little bit of Korean for travel preparation, so I hope at least we can manage to get hotel rooms and food. I know we'll try to find our way to PCBangs to see where the all Pro Starcraft got it all started.  Then we can try how our puny EU-Diamond level is compared to KR ladder in SC2, haha.
After the week in Seoul, we're going to head out south to Busan and take a beetle ferry to Fukuoka(Hakata) and spend four more weeks in Japan visiting Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo.
If there's some advice or recommendations what sightseeings would be worthwhile in Seoul, please reply or pm me. Thank you! 
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28103 Posts
I haven't been to Korea or Japan, so no recommendations. Just wanted to stop by and say I'm jealous and hate you
Have fun!
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TLADT24920 Posts
Sounds like a fun trip. Be sure to take lots of pictures and blog it for us! :D Having been to neither country, can't give any advice other than learning a bit of the language so enjoy it!
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For me I enjoyed the national museum and strolling both the palace grounds in Seoul quite much. Also it might be fun if you can catch a concert, dance performance or sports event.
The place in Korea that I liked the most is a bit of the beaten path, but I really liked Haeinsa temple.
Also there is much good food in Korea, don't be afraid to try new things (not just bulgogi)
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(I am from US so the prices are in US Dollars. However to convert to korean won just add three zeros on to all of the numbers. 20$ = 20'000 KRW.) If i'll remember I will check back in this thread often to assist. But to start things off,
How do you want to stay? Hotels can range 70-400$ a night. I recommend guesthouses (think hostels) that can be as little as 10$ a night. I recently stayed in Seoul for several weeks at a few guesthouses. I ultimately paid about 22$ a night and was very happy with the experience.
Where do you want to stay? Seoul is big. Largest metropolitan city by several standards. Because of this the subway is very large as well. Download subway apps for your phone, or start looking at the map now. GOMTV studios is on the Green line at Samseong station. Proleague is a bit further down at Gangam station, after a few block walk. 30-40 minutes on the subway from these locations could be almost anywhere in Seoul so look all over for where you may want to stay.
I'd recommend the Hongdae area.
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51705 Posts
Hongdae was nice, but it's slowly turned into the new Itaewon.
If you want something that's like Hongdae but not flooded with foreigners try the Konkuk University area (I think that's what Quesadilla told me).
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So amazing that you get to spend this AWESOME opportunity with your girlfriend....
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On July 26 2014 12:58 GGzerG wrote:
So amazing that you get to spend this AWESOME opportunity with your girlfriend....
Honestly I feel Seoul is made for two. The food, the coffee shops, the underwear stores, so many things are couples oriented. They should have a blast.
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We haven't looked into lodging yet, other than couple of websites (http://www.hotel365.co.kr/ and http://www.homestaykorea.com/). I'll check if I can find any available places from Hongdae or Konkuk area from those sites. I suppose we'll try to find hostels/guesthouses or maybe even homestay options at this point.
I think all options below 100$/night are within our budget, the less the better, but I'd appreciate a private room instead of big room with a lot of bunk beds.
I downloaded a subway app to my Iphone, it looks like a good tool to use with google maps. Concerning phones and such, I assume there's very high roaming charges though? Last time I was visiting Canada and played around with GPS and got 50 euro bill for downloading 2 MB worth of maps... I was wondering if there are prepaid SIM-cards available for tourists to get 3G/4G connection? In case we get lost, it can save the day.
What about nightclubs, any specific area that's good to go and relatively safe? Or some areas to avoid in that regard?
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Calgary26004 Posts
I don't know if it's because I'm cheap, or I don't care about dirty motels, but I love staying in love motels when I go to Korea. So cheap, they're everywhere, no hassle...
Everywhere in Koera is safe.
Too bad you're going in October, I'll be there basically most of September >_<
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On July 26 2014 09:39 GTR wrote:
Hongdae was nice, but it's slowly turned into the new Itaewon.
If you want something that's like Hongdae but not flooded with foreigners try the Konkuk University area (I think that's what Quesadilla told me).
Line #7
Kundae Entrance (건대입구)
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On July 29 2014 13:22 Chill wrote:
I don't know if it's because I'm cheap, or I don't care about dirty motels, but I love staying in love motels when I go to Korea. So cheap, they're everywhere, no hassle...
Oh, I almost forgot those exist in Korea too! They are maybe perfect choice for us then, no reservation hassle, cheap and entertaining for a couple. 
Concerning pcbangs, is own equipment allowed to use or are they providing decent mouse&keyboard? Can I login with my own b.net account in korea, since there was some weird restriction in the release of sc2 (had to provide korean ss-number or something iirc)
I suppose proleague might have offseason during our stay, and GSL has finals on that week. Does one need to purchase tickets in advance for finals or just show up well in advance to the studio?
Thanks for everyone replying, I'll keep reading and post more questions if something comes up. Now it's Assembly Summer time! I might post some photos later, even though there's no ASUS ROG this year. 
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Lovemotels may be the best option for a group of two traveling, in your price range. Just ask to see the room before you want to pay for it, quality of lovemotels varies greatly.
I typically do not see people bring in their own keyboards/mice to PCBangs..... but if PCBang has good new Windows computers (bad PCBangs have old slow Windows XP computers) it should be simply plug and play. I am not sure about SC2, you may want to search google for that. DOTA2 did require Korean ss number.
Also GSL finals typically do not require tickets, sometimes they ask foreigners to RSVP when they make announcements, but typically you can just show up on the day of the finals and get in. Same goes for regular GOMTV broadcasts.
What does your girlfriend like to do? If you're like me, you could stay in PCBang for 10 hours everyday. Your girlfriend however may want to shop or sightsee more? Think about this, and maybe select a lovemotel near shopping areas (dongdaemun, myeongdong, hongdae) or at least close to a subway entrance.
PS: I see you asked about nightclubs. Best nightclubs, I think, are mainly in itaewon or hongdae. Theres a few places in Gangam as well. Between Itaewon or Hongdae.... Itaewon will have more drunk belligerent american soldiers, Hongdae will be again more College students. Both are popular places to go clubbing though.
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Hay ^^ the aforementioned girlfriend here.
The purpose of our trip is mostly eSports <3 Keeping that in mind I would say that pretty much all the gaming and geek culture related recommendations would be kewl :3. Of course we would like to get to know better the Korean culture so maybe some "popular" sights as well.
Oh, and museums, especially science museums if you know any good ones. Aand, this might be a far shot, but if there is any demoscene cafes or parties those would be of interest as well. And so would be maid cafes and cat cafes for that matter.
Thanks for all the replies btw
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EPT
