I spent a year studying at KAIST — the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology — in Daejeon, South Korea. Before that, I had lived in Hong Kong for a year and a half. Between the two, I spent roughly two and a half years living in Asia. This is what I ate, what I used every day, and what I still order online now that I am back in Europe.
Arriving in Korea: The First Week
Daejeon is not Seoul. This is important to say because most content about living in South Korea is written by people in Seoul, for people moving to Seoul. Daejeon is South Korea’s fifth-largest city and sits roughly in the geographic centre of the country. It is cleaner, quieter, cheaper, and in many ways more representative of how most Koreans actually live than the capital.
KAIST is a research university. The campus is self-contained, extremely well-equipped, and operates largely in English at the graduate level. International students are not unusual there. What is unusual is the pace — KAIST has a reputation for intensity that is entirely deserved. Students work late. The campus convenience stores are busy at midnight. Shin Ramyun is everywhere.
I arrived with a suitcase, a laptop, and a phone. Within the first week I had sorted a Korean SIM, found the nearest convenience store (about 90 seconds from the dormitory door), and established that the university cafeteria served rice at every single meal, without exception.
Shin Ramyun: The Unofficial Food of KAIST
I ate Shin Ramyun at least three times a week during my time at KAIST. That is not an exaggeration. It is available in every convenience store, every supermarket, and most vending machines on campus. It costs less than a dollar per packet. It takes four minutes. At 2am after a long day in the lab, it is exactly what you want.
Shin Ramyun is made by Nongshim and has been South Korea’s best-selling instant noodle for over thirty years. There is a reason for this. It is not the same as the instant noodles you buy at a Western supermarket. The broth is genuinely spicy, deeply savoury, and has a complexity from dried mushrooms, beef extract, and Korean chilli that most instant noodles never approach. The noodles are thick, wheat-based, and hold texture if you do not overcook them.
Korean students eat it in specific ways. A raw egg cracked into the boiling broth, lid closed for one minute, produces a soft-set egg that enriches the whole thing. A slice of processed cheese melted on top sounds wrong and tastes completely right. Cold rice pressed into the leftover broth after the noodles are gone — this is standard. Zero waste.
I now buy it in 20-packs on Amazon. It is the same product. The bulk price works out to about $1.40 per packet, which is exactly what I was paying in Korea.
Cooking in a University Dormitory
KAIST dormitory rooms have a desk, a bed, a wardrobe, and not much else. Cooking facilities are shared and minimal. There is no space for a full rice cooker. There is always a microwave.
Korean rice — short-grain, slightly sticky — requires precision. The water ratio matters. The resting time matters. I discovered the Joseph Joseph M-Cuisine microwave rice cooker in my second month. It is a stackable plastic container with a steam vent and a measuring cup. You add rice, add water to the marked line, microwave for twelve minutes, rest for two. The rice it produces is not quite as good as a dedicated electric cooker but it is far better than anything I had managed on a hob, and it works for jasmine, basmati, brown rice, and quinoa with the same reliability.
I used mine almost every day. It washes in the sink, takes up no space, and cost around $22. I bought a second one when I got back to Europe.
Jeju Island and OSULLOC Matcha
During a break from KAIST I took a trip to Jeju Island — the volcanic island off the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. Jeju is famous for its black lava coastline, its tangerine orchards, its hiking, and, for anyone who pays attention to tea, the OSULLOC tea plantation.
OSULLOC was founded in 1979 by Amorepacific Corporation, Korea’s largest beauty and lifestyle company. They established South Korea’s first modern green tea plantation on Jeju’s volcanic basalt terrain. The soil is mineral-rich, the climate is temperate and misty, and the result is a matcha with a flavour profile distinct from Japanese ceremonial matcha — smoother, less bitter, with a faint mineral quality that comes directly from the volcanic earth.
The OSULLOC Tea Museum on Jeju is one of the most-visited attractions on the island. I went partly out of curiosity and partly because a Korean friend insisted. The tasting room changed how I think about green tea. Their Volcanic Isle matcha is now the only one I buy. I wrote a longer piece about it on the Korean Matcha page, but the short version: add it to any milk, hot or cold, and the result is the best matcha latte you will ever drink. No special equipment required.
Everyday Life in Korea: What Surprised Me
Convenience stores are extraordinary. CU, GS25, and 7-Eleven in Korea are not the sad-sandwich outposts they are in Europe. They serve hot food — steamed buns, triangle kimbap, tteokbokki, ramen cooked to order at a small station near the counter. They have tables. People have actual meals there. I ate at convenience stores several times a week and was never disappointed.
Public transport is exceptional. The KTX high-speed rail network connects Seoul, Daejeon, Busan, and most major cities. Seoul to Daejeon takes 50 minutes. The subway systems in Seoul are among the cleanest and most punctual I have used anywhere in the world, including Japan. Buses are reliable, cheap, and almost always on schedule.
The language barrier is real but manageable. Outside of Seoul and university campuses, English is limited. I used Papago (the Korean translation app made by Naver — better than Google Translate for Korean) daily. Being able to read Hangul, the Korean alphabet, is worth learning before you arrive — it takes about two days and opens up menus, signs, and labels that are otherwise completely opaque.
The food is genuinely excellent across all price points. I ate at street stalls for $2 and at sit-down restaurants for $8 and the quality gap between the two was smaller than it would be anywhere in Europe. Korean food culture is serious. Even the cheapest meal is prepared with attention.
It is very safe. I left my laptop on a library table for an hour and it was exactly where I left it. People leave their bags on chairs to reserve seats in cafes. The crime rate is extremely low. I adjusted my level of alertness about my belongings after about two weeks and never had a problem.
Hong Kong vs South Korea: What I Noticed After Living in Both
I lived in Hong Kong for a year and a half before South Korea. They are different in almost every way despite both being dense, prosperous, East Asian cities.
Hong Kong is faster, louder, more international, and more expensive. Cantonese culture is distinct and Hong Kong identity is strong. The food, particularly dim sum and char siu, is world-class. The public transport is probably the best I have encountered anywhere. The hiking is spectacular and underappreciated — Lantau Island, Dragon’s Back, Pat Sin Leng, all accessible from central Hong Kong within an hour.
South Korea is more cohesive culturally — a more uniform national identity than Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan mix — and considerably cheaper. Seoul is enormous (ten million in the city proper, twenty-five million in the wider metropolitan area) but navigable. The food culture is different but equally serious. The seasons are more pronounced — genuinely cold winters, genuinely hot and humid summers.
Both were worth the time. I would go back to either without hesitation.
What I Still Buy From That Year
Looking at what I have ordered online since returning to Europe, the pattern is clear. The things I actually miss from daily life in Korea are inexpensive and repeatable:
- Nongshim Shin Ramyun in bulk — the 20-pack on Amazon is the same product at roughly the same price I was paying in Korean supermarkets.
- OSULLOC Jeju Matcha — for matcha lattes at home. Nothing else I have tried in Europe tastes the same.
- The Joseph Joseph rice cooker — I use it at least four times a week. Perfect rice in twelve minutes.
That is the honest list. Not everything I encountered in Korea is available or worth importing. But these three things slot into daily life in a way that makes sense regardless of where you live.
Should You Go to South Korea?
Yes. Obviously yes. It is one of the most interesting countries in the world to visit or live in — technologically advanced, historically layered, culturally distinct, and genuinely welcoming to people who show up with some curiosity and a basic attempt at respect. The food alone justifies the trip. The DMZ alone is worth a dedicated day. Jeju Island alone is worth a long weekend.
If you are planning a trip and want a data connection from the moment you land, the eSIM guide on this site covers the options I have actually used. If you are visiting the DMZ, the gear page covers exactly what to bring to see it properly.