Delivery apps, cash cards, and the pharmacy run: what works differently once you're actually living here
Korean daily life runs on apps and systems that look simple until you need them at 9pm on a Tuesday. Here's what foreign teachers figure out the expensive way, and the cheaper sequence to do it in.
Park English · 2026-08-25 · 4 min read
We've placed enough teachers to know that the first month is when the small stuff becomes large. You sorted the visa. You opened the bank account. Then you get a cold on a Wednesday night and realise you have no idea which green cross on the map is a real pharmacy, or whether the clinic down the street takes foreign cards, or if you're supposed to bow when you leave.
This is the next layer down.
Delivery apps: Coupang, Baemin, and actual grocery shopping
Coupang is Amazon if Amazon delivered toilet paper in four hours. You'll use it constantly. Sign up with your phone number, add your debit card, and turn on the English interface if your Korean is still thin. Coupang Eats handles restaurant delivery; the separate Coupang app does everything else.
Baemin (배달의민족) is the other delivery giant, Korean-interface only, and it covers restaurants Coupang Eats doesn't. Most teachers install both and check which one has a better deal that night. Between the two you can get nearly anything to your door until midnight, sometimes later.
For actual groceries: Homeplus, E-Mart, and Lotte Mart all deliver if you order on their apps or websites. Delivery is often free over ₩30,000-₩40,000. GS25 and CU convenience stores deliver through their own apps, useful at 2am when you've run out of coffee.
One thing nobody mentions: your address in the app needs to match the exact format on your Alien Registration Card. If it doesn't, half the drivers will call you, confused, and you'll spend five minutes trying to describe your building in broken Korean.
The cash card vs. the check card
Korean banks hand you a "cash card" when you open the account. It only works at ATMs. To actually pay for things in stores or online, you need a "check card" (which is just a debit card everywhere else). You have to request it specifically, and some teachers spend two weeks mystified that their card gets declined at Paris Baguette.
Check cards work on Coupang, at E-Mart, on the subway. Cash cards do not. Get the check card first day.
Hospitals, clinics, and the building with the green cross
Most foreign teachers here are under National Health Insurance after the first month of pay. A general clinic visit runs ₩5,000-₩15,000 after insurance. Bigger hospitals cost more and usually require a referral.
Pharmacies display a green cross and are everywhere. You do not need a prescription for most common drugs—walk in, describe the problem, and the pharmacist hands you something. It works, and it's cheap, but you will not always know what you've just been sold. If you want the actual name of the medication, ask for the English label or take a photo of the box.
Naver Map (not Google) is what you use to find clinics. Search "병원" (hospital) or "의원" (clinic). Most small clinics don't take appointments—you walk in, take a number, and wait. Larger hospitals let you book through apps like Kakao Talk.
If you get seriously sick, call your recruiter. We've walked teachers through emergency room visits at 11pm enough times to know that "call someone who speaks Korean" is not cowardly advice, it's correct advice.
Where foreign teachers actually gather
Every mid-sized city has one or two bars where foreign teachers end up on Friday. In Seoul it used to be Itaewon and Hongdae; post-2022 it's spread wider, but those are still the anchors. Busan teachers gather near Seomyeon or Gwangalli. Daegu has a strip near the university districts.
You will find them the same way everyone else does: you'll overhear another teacher mention a place, or someone will post a meetup in a Facebook group. There is no official directory. The map shifts whenever a bar closes or a new hagwon cluster opens.
Facebook groups like "English Teachers in Korea" or city-specific ones are still where people actually organise things, despite everyone saying Facebook is dead.
Costs they don't warn you about
Your first month usually includes: ₩30,000-₩50,000 for basic kitchen stuff if your housing came unfurnished, ₩50,000 for a phone plan, ₩20,000-₩40,000 on transit cards before your first pay, and another ₩50,000-₩100,000 on random things like adapters, hangover soup, and the gym socks you forgot to pack.
If your hagwon reimburses your flight, it's often paid at the end of your first month or after contract completion, not on arrival. Confirm that timing before you land.
Two last things
Korean addresses are hard. Your building has a road name, a district, and a number that makes sense to postal workers but not to you. Keep a screenshot of your address in Korean on your phone. You will need it more than you expect.
And: learn to say "감사합니다" (gam-sa-ham-ni-da) when leaving a shop or clinic. You don't have to, but it smooths a lot of small interactions, and after a year of teaching here you'll do it without thinking.