My honest opinions after one week in South Korea

I am one of those who went to South Korea because of their entertainment industry - Kpop, dramas, movies etc you know the drill, which is all wonderful stuff. And while I understand that a country's entertainment industry never can represent reality, I was still in for a small surprise when I entered the country.

**What follows might sound a bit negative but please notice that I love South Korea and I want to go there again. I am not hating on anything or trying to make fun of the country. These are just my honest opinions from a completely neutral standpoint.***

- First of all I have always thought that South Korea would be similar to Japan (which I have visited in the past) when it comes to living standards, but I soon realized that that wasn't the case. The city (Seoul) isn't very clean at all and it often stinks when you walk on the streets, if it isn't garbage bags lying on the ground where everyone walks, its a strong odor from the manholes which I guess is from actual poop-water (?). Another thing that I noticed is that Seoul looks really high-tech when you are in the middle of the city, but once you leave the center or take a turn to a small street - it immediately starts to look like a poor South East Asian country, like Vietnam or Thailand. Everything looks old and the streets are full of those old three-wheel motorbikes which you often see in Thailand, driving around at full speed like there are no traffic rules.  This is what surprised me most as I thought South Korea would be similar to Japan when it comes to cleanliness and standards, but actually seems to be more of a third world-country.

- I was surprised by how little there seems to be to do in Seoul, at least compared to other capital cities. I was almost done with all "tourist attractions" after one day. After that its all party and clubbing, if you even are into that kind of stuff. If you are interested in going to Seoul a weekend should be enough imo, you will be completely satisfied after 1-2 days.

- The third thing that I noticed is that the people didn't seem to be very kind. Of course they didn't come off as hostile, but certainly they didn't give any impression of being friendly or helpful. When I asked people on the street for help and they just waved me away with their hands, walking away saying something in their own language, most likely cursing. I also got a few scary stares from especially Korean men, but I don't take this very deep as I know every country has creepy people. Well.. just overall the Korean people didn't seem to be very friendly. 

But what shocked me most was the actual service in stores and restaurants.  I can say that I have never experienced such an horrible service as I did in South Korea. When I went to Seven Eleven the cashier talked on his phone while scanning my products, laughing loudly in my face. Another time I went to the convenience store C U, the staff was sitting down and eating a lunch box at the register, staring at me when I entered. When I went to a restaurant the first night, the staff didn't say anything when I entered and looked away when our eyes met, and they just pointed me to a seat, waving with their hands again like they are telling a dog to do something. 

I don't think that even one worker in a store or restaurant smiled at me during my 7 days in Seoul, not even ONE TIME. Never a "welcome" or "thank you". After I paid an expensive dinner another night the staff who took my payment didn't say anything, and just pointed me to the exit door once the payment finished, with an ice cold look on the face. Like I did something wrong. I don't know if this is some kind of culture shock, but I almost felt offended. I paid for their services and gave them my money, but I was treated like I was just a pain in the ass for them. I have been to 50 countries and South Korea had the absolute worst service of them all. Left me a bad taste in my mouth. Even China, which also was a bad experience for me, had better service. I actually randomly met another American during my visit at a cafe, and he also seemed to have a really hard time to put up with the rudeness of the local population. 

- They indeed play Kpop everywhere, especially in Myeong-dong, heard BTS's Dope while walking on the street, haha, that was cool.

- Traffic is chaos and reminds me of when I went to Vietnam. Its CHAOS. It is a battlefield. I could never imagine driving there myself. I can guess that there are many accidents everyday. Holy crap. 

Well I can go on and on, but overall my impression of South Korea is a bit bitter. I wanted to love everything and I will for sure go there again, please don't get me wrong. Korea is a fantastic country, I really think so, but some parts of it are maybe a bit too different for me. And if you think Korea is like the dramas, and are hyped to go there, please be careful because you MIGHT get disappointed.
But now I will enjoy some excellent Kpop =)
If anyone else have experienced something similar please feel free to fill in. Or your own experiences with South Korea.

It's very interesting. I had heard some of the things you mentioned about Skorea, like people waving their hands in the street so that you go away (but then I heard that it's because they don't speak English so they don't want to bother you, something like that) 
what surprises me the most is what you said about the odors. I didn't know about that but now it seems totally logical. 
Anyway, if you go there dreaming about kpop and dramas, you will always be deceived as it's of course not the reality that's pictured in these- but I guess you already knew that haha 

Naksken^
I don't want to sound rude but are you asian? For me as a white person the hospitality was really bad, and I really tried to look kind all the time to them. I even tried to say "Hello", "Thank you", etc in Korean and they just ignored me... =( 

I guess it depends on your experience. Each person is different and each experience is different.

I was in Seoul for 7 days a few months ago and I loved every minute. I went with a friend and we spent every day going through touristic atractions (some places were free or really cheap to get into, the Seoul Tower was great, the palaces, the gardens, the Villages... 10/10) and there's still a lot of stuff we didn't get to visit! Everyone we interacted with was wonderful and polite, despite their struggle with english (which I don't have an issue with at all.)

At first, we couldn't find the place where we were going to stay at and after asking for help at a convinience store (the lady was great despite not speaking english. I was able to comunicate, though. I guess my basic korean came in handy!). She directed us to a police station nearby and the police officer there was wonderful as well, helping us find our place to stay with only an address written on a paper. His english was, again, limited but I tried my best to use all of my korean skills.

As a source of comparison, I lived in China for two years, visited a few chinese cities and to be honest, comparing the two places, Seoul was actually pretty clean and tidy. Regarding the restaurants and services, I also have no complaints at all. Every employee was nice to us, polite, smiled. The ladies & ahjussis at the markets were serviceable and we didn't feel out of place at all.

All in all, Itaewon was the only place that felt short to my expectations but I guess I was indeed expecting something else? Because the rest was all amazing, the food, the people, the vibes, the transportation services... 

I do really understand that it might have been a less positive experience than mine, though. I thought China had a lot of issues regarding the services and the hygiene and other things but some of my friends really love it. 

I'm so looking forward to coming back to Korea and visit and explore what I didn't get to see last time!

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. MrBanana shared her/his opinion about Seoul and it seems to me like they weren't trying to offend anyone. Personally, I've never been to Korea, so I can't speak from experience, but I have a wide variety of friends who either are Korean, lived there for anywhere from 3 months to 5 years to people who are ethnically Korean and speak Korean but grew up entirely abroad. Their opinions of Korea are super diverse. They range from: I "love Korea and nothing that is Korean can be bad" to "I'll never step my foot in this country again".  I personally enjoy hearing different opinions, because I am also interested in visiting Asia and my husband and I can't decide which Asian country should we go to.

Now one thing that I have to say is that the customer service and waving people off that was described here would probably strike me as incredibly rude, too if I saw it. 

I went to South Korea in 2008 or 2009 and people were really nice. They would immediately come help as soon as I stood in front of a map or the subway line map, even though I never asked them. Even elderly people gave me their seats on the subway (which I refuse, but the make me sit eventually by insisting that I do so) cause we were "guests" in their country. Also, many old ladies offered me health drinks that they bought and were taking home, and would try to talk to us (usually by signs or hand gestures) or ask their kids who know a little bit of English to translate. Even an elderly couple came and told us "Welcome to Korea", when we were buying subway tickets.
I was surprised by how people were kind to us. Can't believe that they would become like this after just a few years.

Edit: noticed that all of what I have written happened in the subway. lol! Maybe people are more kinder over there.

@cherrybunny i agree with you.  he did not mean to sound rude, he did want to share his own experiences, i did say i lived in cambodia, but he sounded rude when he implied that the only reason i had a good time there was because i wasn't white. I have zero problem with calling someone on their nonsense and when someone says "i dont' want to sound rude" or "I'm not racist but" or "i'm not sexist but" or "with all due respect" what follows is normally rude, racist, sexist and or disrespectful.  saying "i don't mean to be rude" does not excuse you if what follows is rude.

 Also I'm fairly sure @Tama was being sarcastic.

Ok, so here's the thing.  I  haven't been anywhere really so I can't really answer on korea.  But if you are creative enough you can make any place seem cool.  I live in a town that's kinda a dump.  It's in the woods and by a a river and that's about the only appeal.  The one grocery store is dumpy, dorty, and has some sketchy people working there.  We get a lot of ex cons moving up here cause it's cheap, and there's a lot of drugs.  I could sit down, get creative and describe this place so that everyone on this forum would think it was a wonderful land of paradise straight out of a Disney film.  I've seen it done with places I personally think are the last places I'd ever want to go.  There's a series of books based on a town in the middle of the dessert, and I think it's the worst town in my state.  So ugly and most of the cool places in the book the author made up.  A lot of fans of the book think it's the best place ever.,   places in fiction are definitely prettied up.  The stuff that is real is swept under the rug.  No place is perfect, no matter how neat it's made to look.