5 Things You REALLY Should Do In Korea

The Korean Tourism Board is extremely lame. If you were to follow a prescribed list of things to do by them, your stay in Korea would probably look like this:

1. Visit a folk village. Watch a traditional wedding. Realize how odd it is for people to be dressed up in traditional garb and faking a wedding.
2. Visit Insadong. Buy Korean postcards. Eat a traditional meal and then have your tour guide tell you how kim chi is rated the healthiest food in the world. You don't care.
3. Visit Seoul Tower. Take pictures. Look at all the dumb couples that have put love locks on the love fence.
4. Go shopping in Myeong Dong. Buy the same shit you could back home.
5. Visit a palace. Read about Korea's boring history (compared to neighboring China's, especially).

This is what you SHOULD do:

1. Visit a jim jil bbang (sauna). Most are 24 hours, so you could spend all day there. Sleep, eat, watch TV, shower, bathe, go to the steam room, get a haircut... all while either in PJs or naked. And don't forget to get a body exfoliating scrub from the random worker at the bathing room... who's probably naked too. Twice the fun if you're foreign-looking.



2) Visit Itaewon, the foreigner-dominant part of Seoul, AT NIGHT. The place is incredibly cosmopolitan -- you'll see Americans, Middle Eastern people, Asians, Africans roaming about. I'm sure Koreans get a kick out of being a minority coming here. Don't mess with GIs. Eat a variety of food. Visit a club. Take a walk up Hooker Hill.




Next, go to a spot where there's a night life and...

3) Scope the eye candy. Maybe it's their fashion sense. Maybe it's the plastic surgery. Maybe it's the diet pills. Maybe it's because fat girls get looked down on. Korean women are held to a high aesthetic standard. Forget the social commentary, just enjoy the view.



4) Walk around the area and look for Koreans blacked out on the street. Public intoxication (and sleeping) is not a crime. This can lead to some surprising sights.



5) Try to get into a booking club. Waiters drag girls to your table -- it's like a nightclub and speed-dating put together. The whole thing is very "Korean," so don't expect to understand it at all, just enjoy.


That's how your visit to Korea should look.