The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Travel advice - Japan VS South Korea
Jean
Heartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered User regular
Heartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered User regular
Hey guys!
One of my best buddies is from Thailand. He traveled to his home country for the first time of his adult life last year and since then, he got addicted to travelling all arround the world. He invited me to join him on his next trip to Asia and I am really tempted to take him out on his offer. My wife is invited as well but she declined to join us
We are debating on the destination. He is more interested in visiting South Korea while I am more interested in Japan tough we would like to do more research before making our decision. What are the pros and cons of visiting each of these countries?
Also, is a budget of $5k (canadian) each reasonable for 2 weeks? We'd like to go in August once my summer semester at university is over and done with. also, how easy is it to get to South Korea while already in Japan or vice-versa, is it reasonable to visit both countries in the same trip?
Sadly neither of us speaks japanese or korean altough we're both fluent in english and french. My buddy does speak thai and laotian as well tough I don't think that knowledge gonna be of much use in Japan/Korea right?
We both love seafood
We're interested in visiting both the countrysides and busy metropolis like Tokyo or Seoul.
Also I'm worried about racism towards my buddy. Is that a problem in these countries? He have some chinese blood as well and he told me many people mistook him for a chinese citizen in his trip to Thailand and even accused him of being a ''fake'' thai. He was pretty surprised by that. His mentality is completely westernized tough. BTW I'm white but i'm not too concerned about racism towards me.
Thank you in advances for your response
One of my best buddies is from Thailand. He traveled to his home country for the first time of his adult life last year and since then, he got addicted to travelling all arround the world. He invited me to join him on his next trip to Asia and I am really tempted to take him out on his offer. My wife is invited as well but she declined to join us
We are debating on the destination. He is more interested in visiting South Korea while I am more interested in Japan tough we would like to do more research before making our decision. What are the pros and cons of visiting each of these countries?
Also, is a budget of $5k (canadian) each reasonable for 2 weeks? We'd like to go in August once my summer semester at university is over and done with. also, how easy is it to get to South Korea while already in Japan or vice-versa, is it reasonable to visit both countries in the same trip?
Sadly neither of us speaks japanese or korean altough we're both fluent in english and french. My buddy does speak thai and laotian as well tough I don't think that knowledge gonna be of much use in Japan/Korea right?
We both love seafood
We're interested in visiting both the countrysides and busy metropolis like Tokyo or Seoul.Also I'm worried about racism towards my buddy. Is that a problem in these countries? He have some chinese blood as well and he told me many people mistook him for a chinese citizen in his trip to Thailand and even accused him of being a ''fake'' thai. He was pretty surprised by that. His mentality is completely westernized tough. BTW I'm white but i'm not too concerned about racism towards me.
Thank you in advances for your response
"You won't destroy us, You won't destroy our democracy. We are a small but proud nation. No one can bomb us to silence. No one can scare us from being Norway. This evening and tonight, we'll take care of each other. That's what we do best when attacked'' - Jens Stoltenberg
0
Posts
Korea offers tour packages, some with flight included and some without, in case you are OK with bus rides or whatever depending on the tour. If you're very hikey, you can go it on your own, but if you want to visit a lot of places in a short time and stay at reasonably nice hotels, the price isn't bad at all. If you don't have a lot of time and just wanna stay in a major city and drink every night, you can probably spend most of your money on a fancy hotel. Korean food is super cheap.
I went on a package tour myself. The hotels were surprisingly good. The food was ok. August is a great time, though pretty hot. There's some sort of flower island you can visit if you're into that. Get a well vetted tour company. Make sure your tour guide speaks english. Stuff I did was like visit a Buddhist temple on a mountain, go to a really old castle looking village where people actually live like Amish or something, eat some sort of meal on a floor, go to a spa, other stuff I can't remember. Some of them tried to hock stuff, but it wasn't oppressive.
There are Japan-Korea tour packages as well. I dunno, if you get one, you don't need much day to day money.
Racism uh as long as your buddy isn't japanese it's probably fine.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'd recommend maybe making a list of the top five things you'd each want to do in your respective picks and see if anything catches the other's eye or if there's overlap.
Japan is quite close to Korea. You could take a speed boat from Busan (south of Korea) to Fukuoka (Japan) in ~3 hours. (Or, take a plane as listed above).
I went on a two week vacation to Korea and Japan a few years back. Korea, Japan and China have a really interesting (often troubled) shared history. One of the highlights of my trip was visiting the historic museums just to see how much different the history was presented in Korea and Japan.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
At a baseline level korea isn't that unclean, but yeah, bring hand sanitizer or soap around cause most public restrooms are poorly stocked
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Japan can be quite difficult to get around if you don't pre-plan and pre-purchase all your travel arrangements, though, because English can be hard to find.
We got around using the Japan rail pass (www.JRpass.com). This lets you use the high speed shinkansen trains to get around. It's a fun and easy way to travel. And we ordered a pocket wifi dongle before we went (https://pupuruwifi.com/). The connection was excellent and it wasn't to expensive.
Apart from a night in a temple at Koya-San we didn't plan anything in advance. Finding hostels, museums, travel advice and parties was easy using the wifi dongle and our phones.
Our trip was something like this, using the shinkansen to get around. Tokyo, Osaka, Koya-san, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka, Nosawa-Onsen, Tokyo. Which we did in two weeks.
The high points for me were:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kōya The cemetery is beautifull at night. And staying at a temple as fun
The tokyo nightlife
Renting a bicycle in Kyoto.
Snowboarding in Nosawo-Onsen. Which will not be possible in August. But I heard the other mountain towns are great too.
Let me know if you want to know more. I can look up the apps we used for the local public transport etc.