Korea Guide Notes

Walk into any Korean convenience store at three in the morning and the soju is on the shelf, the beer fridge is lit, and nobody will stop you. Now open a delivery app and try to order the same bottle on its own. You cannot — and the reason is a National Tax Service notice, not a curfew. Quick answer: Korea does not restrict the hours at which alcohol may be sold in a shop. What it restricts is selling it at a distance . Online and app sales of alcohol are prohibited unless the seller falls into a narrow list — and the exception most travellers actually use is food delivery, where the alcohol may be no more than 50% of the order total . Age is checked against a rule that is not your birthday. Verified 2026-08-21 against the statutes and the National Tax Service notice. Five situations, three different answers Buying alcohol · Korea The clock is not the problem. The distance is. What the rules allow, by how the alcohol reaches you. Ink bars are permitted; vermilion bars are ...

You can carry a sub-250-gram drone into Korea, unregistered and unlicensed, and fly it legally. What you cannot do is take it up over central Seoul — and the weight of the aircraft has nothing to do with why. Quick answer: Korea's rules run on two separate tracks. Weight decides whether you must register the aircraft and hold a pilot certificate. Airspace decides whether you need flight approval — and in a control zone, a prohibited area, or above 150 m, every drone needs approval regardless of weight. Most of central Seoul sits inside prohibited area P-73 . Flying there without approval carries an administrative fine of up to ₩3 million . Verified 2026-08-21 against the Aviation Safety Act and its decrees. Three weights, three different obligations Korean law splits small drones at 250 grams, 2 kilograms and 25 kilograms. Each line switches on a different requirement, and none of them is about where you fly. Drone rules · Korea Weight decides the paperwork. Airspa...

A can of beer on a bench by the Han River, soju with fried chicken on a picnic mat, a paper cup of makgeolli halfway up a mountain trail. In much of the world any of these would get you a fine. In Korea they are ordinary Tuesday behaviour — and, with narrow exceptions, entirely legal. Quick answer: Korea has no general ban on drinking alcohol in public places. Since June 2021 the National Health Promotion Act has let local governments designate specific alcohol-free zones , where drinking carries a fine of up to ₩100,000 — but a zone only exists where a local government has actually designated one. Despite headlines in 2023, Seoul did not ban drinking in Han River parks; its ordinance only created the legal groundwork. Verified 2026-08-18. What the law actually says There is no nationwide statute making it an offence to drink in a park, on a street or on a train platform. What changed in June 2021 was an amendment to the National Health Promotion Act (국민건강증진법) giving cities, count...

If your guidebook says Bulguksa costs ₩6,000, throw that page away. Since 4 May 2023, admission to Korea's most famous Buddhist temples has been free — including Bulguksa and Seokguram in Gyeongju, Haeinsa, Tongdosa, Beopjusa and Jeondeungsa. The fee had been collected since 1970. Quick answer: 65 temples of the Jogye Order stopped charging the cultural heritage admission fee (문화재관람료) on 4 May 2023. The temples did not simply give up the income — the government now reimburses them, with ₩41.9 billion budgeted for that purpose in 2023. Five temples still charge, because their heritage is province-designated and falls outside the national scheme. Verified 2026-08-18. TEMPLE ADMISSION · JOGYE ORDER Sixty-five temples stopped charging. Five did not. Cultural heritage admission fees at Jogye Order temples after 4 May 2023. The government reimburses the temples instead. Free since 4 May 2023 65 Still charging admission 5 0 20 40 60 number of temples Source: Jogye Order / National Her...

On 28 June 2023, nearly every person in South Korea got younger — one year younger for most, two for some. Nobody aged in reverse; the law changed. Korea abolished its traditional age-counting system for legal purposes and switched, officially and everywhere in administration and law, to the international one. Quick answer: Korea historically counted age three ways. Korean age (born at 1, +1 every New Year), counting-year age (birth year maths only), and international age (만 나이 — what your passport says). Since the '만 나이 통일법' took effect on 2023-06-28, legal and administrative age means international age. But three visitor-relevant things still run on birth-year rules: buying alcohol and tobacco, school entry, and military service . For a bar, the question is not "are you 19?" but "were you born in 2007 or earlier?" (in 2026). Verified 2026-08-18. The three ages, one table System How it works Status today Korean age (세는 나이) Born at 1; everyone +1 on ...

Stand at almost any Seoul intersection and count the cafes you can see without turning your head. Two is normal. Four is not unusual. First-time visitors assume they have wandered into a coffee district; the truth is that the whole country is one. Korea's national statistics agency counted 107,029 coffee shops in its most recent census — roughly two for every convenience store in the country. Quick answer: Korea's cafe count doubled in six years (51,551 in 2016 → 107,029 at the end of 2022, per Statistics Korea), while the four big convenience chains together run about 55,000 stores. There are even more registered coffee brands (886) than fried-chicken brands (669). For a visitor this is excellent news: you are never more than a short walk from a clean seat, a toilet, fast Wi-Fi and air conditioning — for the price of one drink. Verified 2026-08-18. COFFEE REPUBLIC · SHOP COUNTS Korea has twice as many cafes as convenience stores. Coffee shops doubled in six years. The conv...

It is 6:58 on your first morning in Korea. Your phone — set to silent, because you are jetlagged and civilised — suddenly produces a noise you have never heard it make, over a wall of Korean text. Around you, a hundred other phones are doing the same thing. Nobody looks alarmed. Welcome to 재난문자, Korea's emergency alert system, one of the most aggressive in the world — and one of the most misunderstood by visitors. Quick answer: there are three tiers of Korean emergency alerts. The highest (위급, for things like air-raid warnings) sounds at 60 decibels or more and cannot be turned off . The middle tier (긴급 — terror, extreme rain) alarms at 40dB and can be disabled in settings. The lowest and by far most common (안전안내, safety advisories — heat, cold, dust, lost persons area notices) rings like a normal message and can also be disabled. Nearly everything that startles you will be this third kind. Verified 2026-08-18. The three tiers, in one table Tier What it covers Sound Can you opt...

You have been carrying an empty coffee cup for forty minutes. You have passed thousands of people, hundreds of shops, a palace — and not one trash can. Every visitor to Seoul discovers this, usually on day one, and most assume the city just never got around to bins. The truth is better: Seoul removed them deliberately, and is now spending money to put them back. Quick answer: Seoul had 7,607 street bins in 1995 , cut them to 3,707 by 2007 , and has been adding them back for three straight years — about 7,085 by the end of 2025 , with roughly 470 more planned for 2026. Until the comeback reaches your block: subway stations, bus stops and the shop you bought the item from are your realistic options, and carrying a small bag for your own rubbish is what locals quietly do. Verified 2026-08-18 against Seoul's own announcements. SEOUL STREET BINS · 30 YEARS The bins were removed on purpose. Now Seoul is buying them back. Street trash cans in Seoul. The 1995 pay-per-bag waste system mad...

Seoul's herbal medicine district, Yangnyeongsi in Dongdaemun-gu, is the kind of place travel blogs photograph and then leave. What the blogs usually miss is that the city runs an actual wellness facility in the middle of it — the Seoul K-Medi Center (서울한방진흥센터) — where the full afternoon of museum, herbal foot bath and traditional-medicine experience costs about the price of a coffee and a pastry. Quick answer: the Seoul K-Medi Center in Jegi-dong charges ₩1,000 for its Korean medicine museum, ₩6,000 for a two-person herbal foot bath , and ₩5,000 for the Bojewon herbal experience room; a ₩10,000 package bundles the experiences (and includes the museum). It is closed Mondays and opens 10:00–18:00 from March to October, 10:00–17:00 from November to February. Verified 2026-08-18 against Seoul's official city media. What it is The centre is a public building run for the promotion of Korean traditional medicine (한방), sitting inside the Yangnyeongsi herbal market area of Dongdae...

The word 온천 (oncheon, hot spring) is on bathhouse signs all over Korea. What most visitors — and plenty of Koreans — do not know is that the word has a precise legal definition, and the great majority of the places where you will actually bathe do not meet it. Quick answer: under Korea's Hot Springs Act (온천법), a hot spring is water emerging from the ground at 25°C or hotter that also passes water-quality tests, from a source officially designated by the government. As of the interior ministry's 2022 count, Korea had 535 registered hot-spring bath businesses against 6,025 ordinary bathhouses — so roughly one bath business in twelve is the real, legally-defined thing. The rest heat tap or ground water with a boiler, which can still be a perfectly good bath. It just isn't a hot spring. Verified 2026-08-18. HOT SPRING LAW · BATH BUSINESSES Almost every Korean bathhouse is not a legal hot spring. Registered bath businesses nationwide, 2022. A legal 온천 needs water from the gr...

Every summer, Seoul turns six stretches of the Han River parks into public swimming spots — two full-size outdoor pools and four shallow water-play areas. This year they opened on 19 June and close on 30 August, which means that if you are reading this in Seoul in late August, you have days, not weeks, to catch one. Quick answer: the outdoor pools at Ttukseom and Yeouido cost ₩5,000 for adults (₩4,000 teens, ₩3,000 children), and the water-play areas at Gwangnaru, Jamsil, Yangwha and Nanji cost ₩3,000 (₩2,000 / ₩1,000). Children under six enter free. Hours are 09:00–18:00, extended to 22:00 in peak season at four of the six sites. The famous Jamwon pool is closed for rebuilding and will not reopen until 2028. Verified 2026-08-18 against the Seoul Metropolitan Government's own announcement. What is open in 2026, and what it costs Seoul distinguishes between a proper swimming pool (수영장) and a water-play area (물놀이장) — shallower, aimed at families, and cheaper. The 2026 season r...

The first time you board a Seoul city bus, there is a decent chance you will do what travellers have done here for decades: hold out a banknote. On 183 routes, as of January 2026, there is no longer anywhere to put it. The fare box is gone. Quick answer: Seoul buses cost ₩1,500 for the blue and green city lines with a transit card, ₩1,200 for the small village buses, ₩3,000 for red express buses to the suburbs and ₩2,500 for the late-night Owl buses. Cash — where a bus still takes it — costs exactly the same, earns no free transfers, and on 183 routes is not accepted at all. Verified 2026-08-18 against the Seoul Metropolitan Government's own fare page and its cash-free route list. SEOUL BUS · BASE FARES What each Seoul bus colour costs. Adult base fare with a transit card. Where cash is accepted at all, it costs exactly the same — and forfeits free transfers. Red · express to suburbs ₩3,000 Owl · late-night ₩2,500 Blue & green · city ₩1,500 Village (마을) ₩1,200 0 ₩1,000 ₩2...