Lifestyle

This is the part you actually moved here for, and Korea delivers on it unusually well. Eating out is cheap and good, the country is small enough to cross in an afternoon, and the infrastructure for enjoying yourself runs late and costs little.

The one thing to put in your calendar now: Seollal and Chuseok. On the two great family holidays the country effectively closes, transport books out weeks ahead, and an unprepared foreign resident spends them staring at shuttered shops.

Eating out

A normal Korean restaurant meal is inexpensive, arrives quickly, and comes with side dishes that are refilled free. That last point is not a promotion, it is how restaurants work.

	Roughly
Lunch at a neighbourhood restaurant	The cheapest hot meal you will find
Korean barbecue for a group	Mid-range, priced per portion of meat
Coffee at a chain cafe	More than the lunch, often
Convenience store meal	Less than anything else, and genuinely edible
Delivery	Food price plus a modest fee

Imported ingredients, fruit and anything Western-branded cost noticeably more. Cooking at home is cheap on Korean staples and expensive if you shop for a European kitchen. Restaurants covers what to order and cafes the cafe culture, which is a social institution here rather than a place to grab coffee.

Delivery and convenience

Two things that genuinely change how you live.

Delivery is extraordinary. Almost anything, almost anywhere, quickly and late, by app. It is a major reason Korean apartments have small kitchens.

Convenience stores are infrastructure, not shops. Open around the clock, they handle parcels, bill payment, transport card top-ups, cash withdrawal and a decent meal. Alongside them sit a layer of facilities with no real equivalent elsewhere: internet cafes, karaoke rooms, bathhouses, coin laundries, study cafes and twenty-four hour gyms.

Convenience facilities covers what each is for and how to use it without embarrassment.

Shopping

Three layers, with very different prices. Traditional markets for produce, prepared food and cheap household goods. Department stores and supermarkets for convenience and imported ranges at a premium. Online for nearly everything else, with next-day or same-day delivery that sets a standard the rest of the world has not met.

Online is where residents end up for anything non-perishable, and the only barrier is that most platforms want a Korean phone number for identity verification. Shopping covers the options and the seasonal sales.

The seasons, and the two holidays

Korea has four genuinely distinct seasons and plans activities around them. Spring brings cherry blossom and the festivals that follow it. Summer is hot, humid and wet, with a rainy season and beaches. Autumn is the best weather of the year and the reason people hike. Winter is cold, dry and bright, with ski resorts within reach of Seoul.

Seollal and Chuseok move with the lunar calendar and are the two occasions when the country stops. Families travel, intercity tickets sell out as soon as they are released, motorways jam, and many shops and restaurants close for days. Decide early whether to travel, stay put and stock up, or leave the country, because the worst option is not deciding.

Festivals covers the calendar and events what is on through the year.

Hiking, which is the national pastime

Korea is mostly mountains and the whole country walks up them. Trails are everywhere, well marked, busy at weekends, and there is a serious mountain within reach of every city, including several inside Seoul itself.

It is worth taking up for three reasons beyond the exercise. The autumn colour is genuinely spectacular and brief. Trail etiquette is friendly in a way that ordinary public life is not, and strangers share food at the summit. And hiking clubs are among the easiest social groups for a foreigner to join, because the activity carries the conversation.

Buy proper footwear and expect to be the least well equipped person on the mountain. Korean hiking kit is a competitive sport of its own.

Where the money actually goes

Korea reads as cheap or expensive depending entirely on what you buy, which is why newcomers disagree so sharply about it.

Cheap: public transport, local restaurant meals, convenience store food, taxis, cinema, mobile data, haircuts, and medical care once insured.

Expensive: fruit, coffee from chains, imported groceries and alcohol, Western-brand clothing, anything involving a car, and housing deposits.

The practical consequence is that a resident who eats Korean food and takes the subway lives cheaply, and one who shops for a European kitchen and drives concludes Korea is costly. Both are describing their own habits.

Going out

Baseball is the recommendation most newcomers do not expect and most end up grateful for. The league's fan culture, with its organised chanting and cheering sections, is one of the most enjoyable things you can do here for the price of a cheap ticket, and you can bring your own food and drink in.

Beyond that: cinema is inexpensive and new releases arrive promptly, football and basketball have followings, competitive gaming fills arenas, and live music runs from tiny venues to stadium productions. Nightlife runs genuinely late, and public transport stops before it does, so plan the way home.

Entertainment covers tickets and venues.

Seeing the country

Rail makes Korea small. The south coast, Busan, the mountains and the old capitals are all weekend trips from Seoul, and the island of Jeju is a short flight.

Book intercity trains in advance in high season and around holidays. Entry to palaces, parks and museums is cheap or free, and unlike many countries Korea does not charge foreign visitors a separate higher rate. Tourist attractions covers where to go by season.

Where this goes wrong

• Not planning for Seollal and Chuseok. Transport and shops both disappear.
• Shopping for a Western kitchen and concluding Korea is expensive.
• Missing the free side dish refills and over-ordering.
• Booking holiday travel late. Tickets go the day they are released.
• Staying out past the last train without checking what it costs to get home.

Where to go next

Friends and community covers finding people to do all of this with, and essential living covers the transport card that gets you there.