From the aforementioned Wikipedia, this time on the subject of Japanese names: "As mentioned above, female given names often end in the syllable ko, written with the kanji meaning "child" (�q). This was much more common up to about the 1980s, but the practice does continue today. Male names occasionally end with the syllable ko, but very rarely using the kanji �q (most often, if a male name ends in ko, it ends in hiko, using the kanji �F). Common male name endings are -shi and -o; names ending with -shi are often adjectives, e.g., Atsushi which might mean, for example, "(to be) faithful." In the past (before World War II), names written with katakana were common for women, but this trend seems to have lost favour. Hiragana names for women are not unusual. Kana names for boys, particularly those written in hiragana, have historically been very rare. This may be in part because the hiragana script is seen as feminine; in medieval Japan, women generally were not taught kanji and wrote exclusively in hiragana..."

Ae Cha Girl Korean Love and daughter More... Add Ae Sook Girl Korean Love and purity More... Add Bae Boy Korean Inspiration More... Add Bong Cha Girl Korean Superior and dau... More... Add Chin Ho Boy Korean Precious and goo... More... Add Cho Hee Girl Korean Beautiful and joy More... Add Chun Hei Girl Korean Justice and grace More... Add Chung Ae Girl Korean Noble and love More... Chung Cha Girl Korean Noble and daughter More... Add Chung-Hee Boy Korean Righteous and pl... More... Add Chung-Ho Boy Korean Righteous and go... More... Add Dae-Ho Boy Korean Great and goodness More... Add Dae-Hyun Boy Korean Great and honor More... Add Dae-Jung Boy Korean Great and righte... More... Add Dong-Min Boy Korean East and clevern... More... Add Dong-Sun Boy Korean East and goodness More... Add Du-Ho Boy Korean Head and goodness More... Add Duck-Young Boy Korean Eternal; virtue ... More... Add Eun Girl Korean Grace More... Add Eun Ae Girl Korean Grace with love More... Add Eun Hee Girl Korean Grace and pleasure More... Add Eun Jung Girl Korean Grace and affect... More... Add Eun Kyung Girl Korean Grace and honour More... Add Eun Mi Girl Korean Grace and beauti... More... Add Eun Sun Girl Korean Graceful and good More... Add Hana Girl Korean Flower; favourite More... Add Hea Jung Girl Korean Grace and noble More... Add Hea Woo Girl Korean Grace and girl More... Add Hee Young Girl Korean Eternal; pleasur... More... Add Hei Ryung Girl Korean Grace and bright... By five years later, their population had grown by 65% to an estimated 33,000 individuals, or 1.2% of the entire Mongolian population.[1] The government of South Korea estimates that one out of every two urban households in Mongolia have a family member working in South Korea.[4] 70% are believed to be residing in the country illegally.[5] The growth of the population has been so rapid that the Mongolian embassy in Seoul is largely unable to provide assistance to Mongolian residents; as a result, Mongolians have set up their own non-governmental organisations to provide mutual assistance, such as Dalain Salkhi ("Sea Breeze")..."

JAPANESE GIRLS IN SEOUL: The Firmanent Vacation writes: "Seoul is a very very nice city, quite large but still able to maintain somewhat of a pleasant smalltown feeling about it. I found some quaint traditional neighbourhoods, a Korean rock band performing on a street corner, a huge market full of odds and ends, huge uptown department stores, lots of people everywhere... everything you expect to find in the capital city of Korea, and then some more. One other thing: everywhere I went, I heard people speaking Japanese. It seems Seoul is a major tourist spot for the Japanese. And why should it not be? It is close to home, but still a different country and somewhat exotic, even for the nearest neighbors. So I played the "spot the Japanese" game, trying to figure out if peope were Japanese or not, and I discovered to my delight that I was actually pretty good at picking them out. The japanese girls, at least... ^_^ Here is a review of an Itaewon establishment by Seoul Food Guide: "THE EMBASSY LOUNGE CLUB, 123-1 ITAEWON-DONG, YONGSAN-GU, SEOUL TEL: 792 1533 The latest in the Spire Group's interesting range of places to wile the night away, the Embassy Lounge is more of a cool drinking spot than place to eat at night. Good to head there after dinner to enjoy some groovy music, sit comfortably on sofas and chill out with a bottle of wine. If you are feeling lively the small dance floor is usually occupied and bar staff will join you for a saunter during their breaks. The resident DJ will tailor music to your mood if you ask him/her to. The toilets upstairs are quite beautiful, walls and doors covered in golden scenes of Asian birds and trees. Staff in the Spire Group establishments are all cheerful and helpful, speaking excellent English and service is always accomodating and thoughtful. To get to the Embassy Lounge, find the fire station on Itaewon High Street and cross the road heading away from the strip up the hill past Chuwon Antiques. You will see a small car park on your left and the Embassy is upstairs above Arvorig creperie and next to a Korean Hof serving "Traditional tea, porridge and wine" (an interesting combination we thought). Alternatively, if you are in the little street behind the Hamilton Hotel where you will find 3 Alley Pub, Geckos Garden etc, look along to your left and you will see a large purple Embassy Bar sign hanging out into the road and you can head for that. One thing you will notice not only in Seoul, but in fact all over South Korea, is that Korean people are very keen to talk to foreigners. Doing the rounds at Suwon, for example, I was ambushed by a group of college girls wanting me to help them complete one of their English assignments. I was initially flattered and was willing to give them the 10 or 20 minutes necessary to answer questions like "What do you think of South Korea?" A little later in the day I encountered another group of college girls, who stopped me to ask identical questions, which they recorded on to a tape recorder. It turns out the local university had told its English language students to go looking for tourists, and to ask them a set list of questions. I didn't mind it because it gave me a chance to meet the locals, but I can understand some tourists would get fed up with it. Anyway, you can meet plenty of characters in Korea. My favourite Korean was an old guy I met in a park in Seoul, who waxed lyrical about the incomparable delights of eating dog meat, and poured scorn on Westerners who were opposed to it.

02) 793-3092 Darth Babaganoosh said on Galbijim: "Hottest chicks go to Korean clubs, most of which don't let foreigners in through a whole host of excuses (too old, we have a dress code, too many guys inside already, it's a special party tonight, etc).
"Club Circle in Apkujeong is pretty good, but they are both expensive and almost exclusively Korean. Hot chicks, though.
"If you can go with a group of Korean friends to a Korean club, that's where you'll find the girls..."

Rooves covered with giwa tiles... Korean red bricks...

Bonghakgwan: (031) 592-9522.

Go down to Incheon (the port not the airport); it costs only a dollar (or 95 Yen) for the one-way subway ticket. Now that is what I call cheap travel -- Korea is certainly an economical country to travel inside now. The Marmot's Hole considers the Jung-gu district of Incheon (otherwise known as Chemulpo) one of his favorite parts of Korea. Just going by Marmot's photos alone, the place reminds me of Yokohama in Japan -- and just like Yokohama, there is a Chinatown nearby. Just like Yokohama, Chemulpo owes its existence to 19th Century trading treaties. As The Marmot explains: "Chemulpo was nothing more than a small fishing village until the 1880s when, following a series of essentially unequal treaties including the Treaty of Ganghwa (1876) and Chemulpo Treaty of Amity and Trade (1881), the village became a full-fledged treaty port, complete with self-administering foreign settlements, Christian churches, Western-style parks, foreigner clubs and extraterritoriality.

"Unlike Busan, Gunsan and Korea's other treaty ports, where the foreign settlements were almost entirely Japanese, Chemulpo's foreign settlement was much more diverse. The General Foreign Settlement of Chemulpo, formed in 1884, was composed of six nations �EQing China, Japan, the United States, Great Britain, Russia and Germany (although China and Japan also maintained their own exclusive settlements in the city). Chemulpo became Korea's closest thing to Shanghai, home to missionaries, soldiers, traders, diplomats and rogues, brought to together in their search for fortunes, souls and imperial aggrandizement..."

NORI PEOPLE, RODEO DRIVE, APGUJEONG Tel: 02 549 6674 http://www.noripeople.com/, 657-12 Shinsadong, Kangnam-gu, Seoul Turn left off Rodeo Drive as after the large convenience store and you will find Nori People on your right. It is called a lounge but is an open-fronted korean "pub" full of good looking 30-somethings getting drunk, eating and having a real laugh. Funky korean tunes play and posters for reggae gigs are plastered around the walls. The toilets are outside round the corner, basic but have loo roll. Metal and plastic tables and chairs and good service from cheerful bar folk. We loved this place. It feels real and gives you a good look at Koreans having a good time. A mix of couples out on a Friday night, mates having some beers and a chat together and small groups of friends in cool kit ready to go clubbing later (it didn't look like some of them would make it, though. There was a guy at the table next to us with his mates, just passed out fast asleep, sprawled on the table - too much Soju I think, or maybe too much beer, or perhaps a mixture ... his mates were absolutely plastered, funny to watch, lots of animated conversations, back slapping and swaggering around with their hats on sideways). On another note, and following our visit to a pretty people bar, there are some mighty good looking Korean men here..."

Saunas are a big deal in Korea, almost as big a deal as onsens are in Japan, and in fact a lot of Japanese girls go to Seoul specifically to spa it (especially now that the won is so weak.) Brucie G said on his Wondrous Blog of Adventure and Mystery: "On Sunday, I went with a friend to one of these "Jimjil Bongs." Bong = room and Jimjil = sauna. At least I think it means sauna cause that's the main attraction. And it's really not much like the only sauna place I've been to in NY (the russian one downtown). It was bigger and much more family-oriented. Lots of little kiddies running around. In the main area there's a big wooden floor with people lounging on little pillows, eating, watching TV, playing playstation, sitting on massage chairs, and probably doing some other Korean things that I didn't understand. This is right next to the different types of saunas that you can go in and out of at your leisure (mud walls, jeweled walls, super hot ones and so on in that order). There are vary degrees of these places, but this one was really clean and nice. The extreme male nudity in the locker room and single-sex whirpools/hot tubs will probably take a little getting use to, but I sort of steered clear of there this first time. I'll venture there next time I suppose. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it. Decent article about it here: http://www.seoulstyle.com/art_naked.htm The article starts out with this line: The Korean sauna may seem a bit daunting if not outright surreal for the uninitiated foreigner. But I felt right at home! It seems that whenever someone tells me I might have to "adjust" to something, there's not much adjustment needed at all. So I guess either I was initiated well with my plethora of Asian friends or, like Colbert, I don't see race.

STARBUCKS IN SOUTH KOREA
Starbucks might be closing coffee shops around the world, but they seem to be still thriving in East Asia, South Korea particularly. If you are on your game, a cafe like this could be a good place to pick up. To see the full catalogue of Starbucks in Seoul (in Japanese and Korean) hit up Paretake's StarBucks Korea Site. Paretake lists this branch, in Sosomun (that's literally "Western Little Gate" in English):
명지빌딩점(79호) 서소문점(181호)
There is also a Starbucks outside Jonggak Station, near the Kyobo Bookstore. NORTH EAST ASIA VS SOUTH EAST ASIA

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