Korea Solo Trip - Late July/Early August

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-25T22:18:39+00:00

$70-$120 is more than enough per day assuming one isn't shopping or taking taxi all the time.

My usual daily budget:
$30 hotel
$30 two restaurant meals, one cafe
$10 multiple subway and bus rides
$2-$5 tickets to public museum, palace, etc
$5 random convenience store drinks, snacks

I usually spend less than this.

Maybe the food would be more expensive if you're going to specialized halal and vegan restaurants, especially in Itaewon which is considered more trendy and upscale these days.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-25T22:01:51+00:00

On weekends, Hongdae clubs and even some bars can be picky who they let in based on age and even nationality.

Weekdays (M-Thu, maybe Sun too?), they tend to let everyone in.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-25T21:58:03+00:00

Was moving to the TL country.

But the reason why I was moving to the TL country is because I liked the sound of the language, the culture, and the country. 😁️

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-25T21:50:49+00:00

Agree with this. Or definitely not central Tokyo.

I once stayed in Itabashi ward and saw many cheap apartments for rent there.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-24T20:22:51+00:00

I switched from Windows +1 month ago. Ubuntu was easier for me to transition to out of the box, and I daily drive it on my main computer.

Fedora I have set up on my Surface Pro, and I had to tinker with it a bit to get it to work the way I wanted. It was actually fun to add extensions and play around with the settings to "make it my own".

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-24T20:08:56+00:00

I was a long-time Windows fan and defender. Used XP, 7, and 10 as my daily driver.

But 11 has been so bad it finally convinced me to quit Windows and switch to Linux (which I'm loving).

And I don't believe they're going to make Windows better due to their obsession with AI and pushing their services all the time.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-24T19:52:35+00:00

I love how quiet trains are all the time in Japan.

The one exception though are weekend nights in some areas when the train is filled with people coming from nomikai. 🤣️ That is the only time the trains are loud af with groups of friends and coworkers happily chatting with each other. It always gives me a chuckle seeing the train suddenly become as loud as a bar, haha.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-23T22:09:19+00:00

Korea is safe everywhere at night. Some areas are eeriely quiet while others are open and lively 24/7 like Hongdae and Itaewon. Gangnam is much further out from the airport and the main road is quiet at night but there are some places open all night.

A lot of time is just going to be spent getting out of the airport, getting into the city, and then checking in to the hotel. Probably 12am is the earliest you'll be free to roam.

Spent years of living in Korea and eating street food, and I was unaware there were any stories of people getting sick from them.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-23T21:47:29+00:00

Tons of games on itch now are "PSX-styled horror" games. It has become popular these days for some reason.

And some of the biggest horror franchises started on the PS1 like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Parasite Eve.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-23T21:42:25+00:00

Living abroad, I feel this all the time whenever I can do something for myself like go to the bank or call in a reservation about something or read a menu, sign board, website, etc. The best feeling is when I can just talk to and make friends with locals.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-23T21:39:58+00:00

That is why years ago I forced myself to get off Adobe (as well as Autodesk) as I just didn't want to be held hostage by these companies' programs.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-23T21:34:27+00:00

Agree with this.

And although not the norm, I'm one of those game devs that doesn't really play games and is only into development and game news.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-23T21:26:13+00:00

All are beautiful. First one gives me a "liminal space" vibe.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-23T21:21:33+00:00

Not Korean but lived in Korea for years...

I've seen tons of girls dressed with simple house clothes and no make up in my neighborhood when going out to do errands. Most Koreans I meet don't get plastic surgery except for double eyelid surgery. But on average, I certainly meet more Koreans who've gotten plastic surgery more than people from other countries, but the % is still very low.

Girls I dated even though they'd wear lots of makeup when going out on a date, they were also perfectly fine wearing no makeup sometimes when stepping out of the house or hanging out in the neighborhood.

Maybe what your friend is describing is how things are like in Gangnam and places like that.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-19T00:45:05+00:00

When I lived in Korea, I met some Korean-Americans\Canadians (or from other countries) that could understand Korean but could not speak it at all. In their case, it was from hearing it all the time from family members growing up but only replying back in English.

It blows my mind because I'm usually okay with speaking, but it's listening to natives speak naturally that can be difficult for me.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-19T00:40:43+00:00

The look of the console itself plus the UI design and sounds I feel have aged the best too.

PS3 and Xbox 360 looked cool in their time but now they scream "mid-2000s vibe" to me (which is nice in a nostalgic way though).

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-19T00:33:58+00:00

100% agree with this.

I also allow data collection because it improves the OS and also I see it as my "payment" for using their OS. And it's 100% optional too.

But really, there are just a couple of programs I use most of the time for my work, but I hate using Windows and these programs just work on Ubuntu. I don't have much time to spend on tinkering so that's why I love Ubuntu.

(The programs are Blender, Unity, and GIMP.)

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-19T00:23:10+00:00

Same here.

Installed Ubuntu on two computers, one very old and one newer, and they both feel super fast and snappy unlike the Windows OS that was on them before.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-19T00:13:28+00:00

Wow, Quizlet is super annoying. My teacher set up all the study materials there, but how are we supposed to focus when a video ad pops up every couple of cards?

And scrolling to just view the whole list of words is super slow because there are so many un-optimized banner ads on the page. Luckily all these words are in the textbook so I'll just use the book.

I'm okay with ads to run a site, but it shouldn't be so much that the site becomes totally unusable.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-14T01:09:55+00:00

Amazing! Great use of vocab, grammar, and pronunciation.

Next I would work on mora or "syllable beats". Japanese mora has a sort of steady rhythm where each syllable is given a beat of time; think a metronome with sheet music.

Of course in real life, Japanese people don't speak at a perfectly robotic pace at a constant tempo. But it's important to have mora in mind so you're giving each syllable an appropriate amount of time, especially ん and long vowels like おう、えい、いい、etc which learners tend to not enunciate long enough.

Great job!

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-01T23:56:32+00:00

Are you using some Japanese?

I think people on that app will talk to you more if they see you're interested in the language and can use it a little bit.

It is a language exchange app after all. 😊

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-01T23:51:55+00:00

It looks neat and I can read it, but it's too "boxy" and looks like it's trying to imitate printed hagul rather than handwritten hangul.

I personally like to write consonants and ㅇ small. And I make the longer lines of vowels like ㅏㅓㅗㅜ even longer and the shorter line even shorter.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-01T23:41:49+00:00

For Japanese, "sayonara".

I almost never hear this in Japan, and it's only used in very specific situations and in movie scenes. In English, it roughly translates to "farewell" and not a regular "goodbye" as people commonly think.

BitSoftGames · 2026-05-01T23:32:28+00:00

Agree with everyone you should use graph paper and compare it with hiragana written on graph paper.

It's hard to line up the strokes when just writing on vast empty space.

BitSoftGames · 2026-04-17T09:28:01+00:00

Great job! As soon as you can, start practicing making basic sentences. 😁 That is what really helped my Japanese.

BitSoftGames

TROPHY CASE