For this week's TLDR we're going to give you something ultra useful. For those of you who
have SmartPhones and that's pretty much 98% of the world.
I was gonna say "who are you talking to? All those people with their Blackberries?"
Shots Fired!
When you come to Korea, here is a list of useful apps that are going to help you survive
and thrive in Seoul and the country.
I'm going to start off with one that's good for people who speak Chinese, who speak English
and Korean, which is the subway app.
The most important app. You need to download it right away. It is called Jihachul and it
is free and amazing.
This is not a simple subway map that shows you how to get from one point to another.
It goes into details.
More detail than you even knew existed.
Okay we love this stuff so we used to come from Bucheon we'd have to transfer over a
bunch of lines and when you transfer over a subway line, it'll tell you which cart to
get on.
Exactly what cart and what door you could get off at so you're closer to the stairs
so you can make your transfer quicker.
Because not every station has like front and end staircase so we'll like throw it in cart
number 3 so you'll know exactly where to stand, which door to get off on and you just like
arrive there!
It'll tell you the time that it arrives. It'll tell you the time you're gonna leave. It's
just a perfect transportation app. I wish the rest of the world had something as awesome
as this.
Now one thing I will say is that if you don't speak Korean because you're like a tourish,
using the English version is okay, but I would recommend getting to know the Korean version
instead because the English names for things are not
Sometimes the spelling isn't the exact same.
Like the Samgakji!
Apart from the subway app, you could also use the bus app, which is just as awesome
and just as useful.
Okay, I just opened it up here. We used this app a lot when we were living in Bucheon because
it uses the different bus systems so there's like the Seoul official buses and then there's
like the inner city buses so traveling between Bucheon and Seoul, we didn't want to take
the subway forever. We would take the inner city buses. The problem is, those buses fill
up really fast and because it has like real time bus info, if the stop you're standing
at has too many people, which will happen a lot if you're at like a famous bus stop
like coming from school, you can cheat the system by going one bus stop up so that you
can actually get a seat and you don't get stuck standing.
Clever!
You don't want to like leave the bus stop and miss the bus, but you don't have to because
The app will help you out with that.
Exactly. I mean that's not the point of the app to get a seat, but that's what we use
it for.
The next app that you must get, the most important app in all of Korea is the Kakao Talk. It's
for Android and IOS and you just talk to everybody.
I like Kakao.
Best emoticons in the entire world.
I'm gonna send you my favorite current favorite set, which is 2pm, which I don't usually buy
like icons from KPop bands, but
Pictures at 2pm don't matter whatsoever. It's the horrendous Engrish that surrounds it. Let me read to you some
of this right now.
Go for it.
Washing. I'm washing my face and brushing my teeth. Who the fuck cares? Bored. Give me
play. I am free.
This is my favorite.
Do not, oh my God. Do not be silly. Don't!
That's not like someone is being like 'no don't do it".
It's all looking like angst-y and sad with ridiculous... Depressed because of
Okay so the point of Kakao is not to get these 2pm emoticons. The point is like everyone
uses it. It's so ingrained.
Did we explain what this was?
It's a messaging app. Kakao is the ubiquitous messaging app in Korea.
You can use it to message people. You can have group chats with people. You can do kind
of like the equivalent of FaceTime.
Yeah.
You can send each other pictures. They have a gallery.
If you're friends with people in Korea and they use Kakao you don't have a choice. You
have to use it.
Businesses use Kakao. Kakao.
Now if you're moving to a new country, learning language is important as well so we've actually
been using the HelloTalk app a lot. Like a lot of our friends that do YouTube do use
it as well. You can use it pretty much to have conversations with other people and brush
up on your language so you can practice Korean for people that are trying to learn English
or if you're trying to learn Korean you can have a conversation back and forth. I'm actually
really excited because I'm actually using it to brush up on my Polish because whenever
my parents and my family speak to me, they speak to me in English, but because my Polish
sucks so fortunately I'm speaking to other people on this HelloTalk app that speak to
me in Polish and I can read Polish although everybody is really very excited for me to
brush up on my language that way. So this pretty much you mention what language you
want to learn and what language you speak and it will pair up with other people that
know the language you want to learn and also want to learn the language that you speak
and you just start exchanging conversations back and forth that way.
Yeah. That's very cool. I wish we had this when we were teaching still. That would have
been super helpful.
I actually find this method of learning languages a lot more useful than going to school. Some
people like the school method. I can't really follow a text book and a curriculum. I need
to learn things practically according to my needs and I find that something like this
is a lot more useful for me at least.
I'm gonna try to brush up on Croatian
I'm gonna try to teach you Polish! TI!
TI
HOTCH
DAVAI!
TI HOTCH DAVAI!
Close.
What does it mean.
You. Here. Fast.
So Bali bali?
Yes. Good timing.
Your food is here.
Give the moneys. Conveniently using an app to get it here. Next up are some of our favorite
food delivery apps. There is nothing quite like being super antisocial and not having
to talk to anybody while having food arrive at your front door.
Yeah, pretty much you open up the app, you click on the kind of food that you want and
then it will tell you in your area what restaurants are open and you can order directly within
the app and it will just come to your door and you pay for it like any delivery. You
don't have to pick up the phone. You don't have to talk to people. You don't have to
listen to anyone. You don't have to wait for a ring tone. You just push buttons and food
just comes to your home almost directly into your mouth.
Now what I will say is that you do have to have an understanding of Korean because it's
not available in English so you have to make sure you can read to fill out the form because
all you have to do is put in like your email address and a password, you put in your phone
number and then you put in your address. That's it and then other than that you don't have
to redo it every single time. If you look at our YoGiYo app
Pretty much all chicken.
Yes.
Cause there's a really, really good chicken place right beside our home. It's not here
in this studio, but by our home. They deliver to that area and it's like my favorite Korean
chicken.
Sometimes I'm like what should we eat toni and Simon is already delivered
As soon as Martina goes out for a night with friends, as soon as she closes the door, chicken.
Chicken. Another quintessential app you're going to have is a map service of some kind
and I know a lot of you will have like Apple or Google maps.
Don't use them! They're useless here in Korea.
I mean, it works. They're just not updated. So for example if you go onto the Google map
service, our studio doesn't exist.
You try to see pictures like the street view of our studio. It's not even built yet.
No. So what you want to use instead is Naver or Daum. Basically those are the Googles of
Korea. Can you say?
Yeah, you can say that. They're the search engines.
They're the search engines of Korea, but they're in very strong competition with each other.
I prefer Naver as a search engine. Search thingy mabobber, but I prefer Daum when it
comes to its map function.
It'll look better I think Daum does, but both of them provide useful information. Pick any
one you want.
I say go for Daum.
No there are some apps that you might not really be familiar with. It depends on what
phone carrier you're with. So for example, I'm with LGU+ and they have a little LGU+
coupon app and whenever you go to like participating stores, convenience stores or Starbucks or
whatnot.
Participating stores.
It's like instead of having an old fashioned coupon book that you cut out, you pretty much
show them the app and they scan it and you'll automatically be withdrawn, like, 500won.
You save $.50 to $2 on all your purchases and it's really easy. Just scan it and boom!
No problem.
If you've been to Korea before you definitely seen people waiting in line and then like
holding their phone out and that's what's going on.
Exactly. So I've been using mine. I love it. I save money every time I go shopping.
I save money every time I go. This ad was not sponsored by LGU+
LGU needs some more coupons. They're great. So whatever phone carrier you're with, make
sure you find out what they offer. I'm pretty sure Olleg offers some as well. I don't know
about KT, but check them out. We're gonna talk about some more apps on our blog post,
including a house hunting app if you're looking to hunt a house in Korea so make sure you
click on our blog post if you want to read more about it. Also if you want to download
any of the apps that we mentioned we're going to include the links in our info box below
so you can get those as well.
If you're currently using any of the apps that we mentioned, make sure you let us know
what you like about them and if you're using other apps that we haven't mentioned, let
us know which ones you prefer.
What did we miss out on?
Yeah, someone is gonna say something bad for sure for like the porn app or something suspicious.
I don't think they have, porn is banned in Korea so they wouldn't make an app for it.
It would be a successful app though.
It would be. Hey Korean entrepreneurs. Make a pornography app.