Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of unification and equipped with monuments, historical exhibits, and an observatory,
is one of the more popular.
There are hopes the tourist dollars will continue to flow long after the border
opens. The thin human presence in the DMZ has made it a treasure trove of rare
plant and animal life, including endangered species that some officials are betting
will prove a great lure for nature enthusiasts when the Zone itself is no longer needed.
Next to Seoul, Gyeonggi-do has the largest foreign population in the country, with around
300,000 foreign residents. A significant proportion are migrant workers, usually from South
or Southeast Asia, who work in Gyeonggi-do's many factories, but they also includes ex-
ecutives, teachers, and military personnel. Expatriates are spread throughout the province,
with higher numbers in larger cities such as Incheon and Suwon and popular Seoul satellite
towns such as Seongnam.
Most city halls have at least some English-language information on housing, garbage
disposal, and other daily life issues available either online or on-site to help new arrivals
settle in. Because of Gyeonggi-do's proximity to Seoul, much of the socializing among
expatriates tends to take place in the capital, and residents will probably also need to
head to Seoul to participate in clubs or associations geared toward specific interests.
While there are a few religious institutions in Gyeonggi-do that offer English-language ser-
vices—Incheon's Jooan Methodist Church and Suwon's Nations International Church are
two examples—Seoul has a far wider range. Residents also need to depend on newspapers
and broadcasts from Seoul for English-language news and entertainment. All that said, most
sizable cities in Gyeonggi-do have dining and entertainment districts of their own where ex-
patriates tend to congregate, such as Bupyeong in Incheon and Yeongtong-dong in Suwon.
The provincial government runs a 24-hour emergency medical information hotline (1339)
and has designated several recommended hospitals for foreign residents where multilingual
treatment is available. These include Ajou University Medical Center in Suwon and St.
Mary's Hospital in Uijeongbu. Standards of care are very high, and the hospitals run some
specialist clinics in areas such as neurology and family medicine.
