When the working day is done, where do you go to have fun?  Seoul has a wealth of options, from the indie atmosphere of Hongdae to the international vibe of Itaewon. Folks down in Busan can hang out at Haeundae or head over to Seomyeon. Gwangju’s got Chungjangno, Daegu’s got downtown, and Daejeon’s got Yusong.

Whatever your favorite place to kick back and relax, we want to hear about it in the open thread below. Keep the comments coming, and we’ll put them up in the official Reader’s 10 poll on August 5th.

We heard plenty about the problems people have with life in Korea. There are certainly things out there that the country could improve on. But it doesn’t seem to be a complete conversation if all we do is talk about what’s wrong.

What is your favorite part of life in Korea? Share it with us in the open thread below, and we’ll take the results to put together for a poll that we’ll get started next week!

Ready, set, GO!

After getting over 50 comments on our open thread, we have culled all of the responses together into one terrific poll, which summarizes many of the complaints that foreigners have about Korea. If you have a complaint that isn’t in the poll, feel free to share it below, but we think we’ve pretty much gotten them all. Feel free to disagree.

Oh, and participate in our open thread on what your favorite part of life in Korea is too!

After our cover story “Where to Brunch” ran in April, we heard plenty of your opinions as well, making it the perfect opportunity to run a Reader’s 10. The results were unusually predictable. The Suji’s Restaurant and Deli chain has been known as the brunch place for years, and they ranked number two on our list, while our number one choice placed 8th! That probably had to do with their very poor choice to start closing on Sundays shortly after we went to print. Apparently the boost from our article was enough for them to decide to take Sundays off – but we wouldn’t have ranked them that high if we had known they were going to close on Sundays! Our sincere apologies to everyone who visited on a Sunday – the information was correct when we went to print.
Here were your choices:

10.    La Bocca 02-790-5907
9.    The JW Grill Champagne Brunch Buffet         jw-marriott.co.kr
8.    Pancakes Original Story 02-794-0508
7.    Indigo 02-749-0508
6.    Gecko’s geckosterrace.com
5.    Grand Hyatt Seoul Champagne Brunch Buffet         grandhyattseoul.co.kr
4.    Butterfinger Pancakes 031-785-9994
3.    The Wolfhound Pub wolfhoundpub.com
2.    The Flying Pan 02-514-5585
1.    Suji’s Deli & Restaurant sujis.net

That brings us to The Reader’s 10 for July. You know, we’re proud residents of Korea, but like anyone who resides in another country, we have our complaints about Korea and the things we wish were more like back home. We figured the month of the best weather of the year would be a good time to ask:

What’s your biggest complaint about life in Korea?

Dangerous, huh? It’s going to be a tough one to manage, but we’re going to try. There are going to be two stages, since everyone’s got an idea. Stage #1: post your complaints to 10magazine.asia/complaints on or before June 4th. We posted it on Facebook on the 20th, so you’ll see plenty of ideas there already. Then we will organize them into the most common twenty or so answers, and from June 5th – June 11th you can place your vote. Oh, and no racist/foul/distasteful comments accepted. Let’s be reasonable here, folks. And we already have our Reader’s 10 question ready for July.

What’s your favorite part of life in Korea?

These Reader’s 10′s just keep delivering us more and more surprises. We were under the impression that there was no way anything but a chain could win our readers’ poll on coffee shops, but then came along the impassioned patrons of The Shisha House in Daejeon. This place must provide quite a service to the English-speaking community of Daejeon because it didn’t just win our poll, it almost doubled the votes of the second place winner – Starbucks! That’s a pretty amazing showing for a little upstart café we’d say.

10.     Angel In Us angelinus.co.kr
9.     7 Monkeys
8.     A Twosome Place twosome.co.kr
7.     Espressamente Illy espressamenteilly.co.kr
6.     Holly’s hollys.co.kr
5.     Tom & Tom’s tomntoms.com/eng
4.     Caffé Bene caffebene.co.kr
3.     Coffee Bean coffeebeankorea.com
2.     Starbucks istarbucks.co.kr
1.     The Shisha House theshishahouse@gmail.com

Now last month’s issue on the best brunches in Korea was one of our most successful issues ever, with Kyobo Bookstores selling out and new subscribers calling and saying, “Be sure to start my subscription with this month’s brunch issue.” We listed what our brunch experts had chosen as the ten best brunch places in Korea, and of course, as everyone’s got an opinion, we got a little pushback and even flat-out disagreement. So now it’s time to hear what our readers think. Next month’s Reader’s 10 is –

“What is your favorite place for brunch in Korea?”

Polls open at www.10magazine.asia the last week of April and close on May 12th at 11:59 pm. Comments and discussion are welcome. Have at it folks!

Our April cover story was certainly the most popular we’ve had yet. Although popular may not be the exactly right word, as we heard from readers and advertisers alike a very common refrain – “Great article, but what happened to X? I get brunch there all the time, and they didn’t make your list.” Well here’s your chance to let your voice be heard on the great brunch debate. Tell us what your favorite place to brunch is, and we’ll tell Korea what you all came up with in our June issue. Share your opinions in the comments. Let the great brunch debate begin!

Every month we ask our readers to share their opinions on a certain topic with us. This month we want to know what you think is the best coffee shop in Korea. Now we know the chains are going to win the top spots, but we’d also like to make a real coffee discovery, so if you have a favorite coffee shop that you and your friends visit often, please, please, please lobby your friends to vote for them on your favorite coffee shop’s behalf. If you have a small-scale coffee roaster and shop that you’re in love with, be sure to tell us some information about them (location, phone number, website) so we can find them and then post information about them later!

Poll closes Sunday, April 11th at 11:59 pm.

The polls for this Reader’s 10 are now closed. Please be sure to visit our new poll on your favorite coffee shop!

Wow, we got more responses to our Reader’s 10 than ever before this month. We had to whittle them down some, as we got a lot of responses from abroad. Let’s face it, 10 doesn’t have many readers outside of Korea and this is the “Reader’s 10.” We did allow one, however, as Scott Pullen seems to have made his voice heard. When one of the world’s top DJs votes in your poll, you don’t drop his pick, particularly when he does gigs in Korea often enough to know his DJs. (No, we won’t tell you who he voted for.) The final tally was a little over 200 votes. The winners are:

10. Unjin

9. Richard Boxer

8. Mykian Fallaria

7. Jon Lockley

6. Oil Can Boyd

5. DJ_S (Dan Springer)

4. Keystone (Felix Yoon)

3. Ladybird (Baya)

2. 4play (Matthew Clement)

1. Ross Mackay

Next month’s Reader’s 10 Question -

What’s your favorite Korean ramen? With well over 30 to choose from, this is going to be interesting. Make your voice heard today and win! One lucky voter will a beef and jjigae dinner for two at Bulgogi Brothers!