This was a controversial one to answer, although I think that we can answer it fairly well. Both of us have lived in multiple countries and have traveled even more, so we do have experience in other places to compare this place to.

My instinctive response to the questions: ‘Is it safe in Korea?’ is to respond with a yes. This is because on the whole, Korea is very safe. Truth be told, Koreans often have a harder time going to other countries than most people do coming here. For example, theft, while it occurs, isn’t the same as other places I’ve been. I’ve seen women in public who have left their bag at a table to, say, go to the bathroom, or to talk outside on the phone, be gone 5 minutes, and nobody touches the bag at all. People leave coats at tables in public spaces and usually no one will ever steal them. I think CCTV plays a part in keeping people honest here, since camera are virtually everywhere and people have just sort of gotten used to living with them in public spaces. It’s amazing how a watchful eye can drastically alter humans’ behavior sometimes.

Staying with this theme of theft, I’ve also heard from friends living here who’ve written on Facebook about their laptop getting stolen while out the previous night as well. Richard even had someone walk off with his motorcycle once out in front of our home. We went downstairs the next day and we were like ‘Where’s your motorcycle?’ Someone down on their luck must have apparently tried to walk off with it. (That story has a happy ending though: Richard found his bike 5 days later in the back of a bike shop. The owner explained how someone wheeled it up to his shop and asked for some money to buy the bike, and the owner called the police on him. Richard got extremely lucky in that instance.)

But as much as I wish I could say that completely or mostly safe, I know that that’s not true either. Maybe I got a little bit too passionate in this video (I’m a bit nervous about making it public to be forthcoming), but I had to be honest. As a woman, Korea isn’t always the safest place. I’m not saying that it is more dangerous than other countries, and depending on where you may live it could be a whole lot less dangerous. But here, the most common crimes besides (besides business corruption) are crimes against women.

I’m not saying that if you come to Korea it’s going to be a huge problem for you if you’re female. But I don’t doubt that you’ll at least hear about it. More than that, it’s important to just be aware so you can help avoid having any problems. It’s a sad world that we live in that such things have to be mentioned at all, but the world is still far from perfect. For me, it’s better to be honest and safe than the alternative.

On that note, I’d like to share some good news with you! Richard and I have received quite a few questions at this point, too many to answer 1 per week, week after week on LIKE IT. So, we’re going to try to answer some of these questions here. We really enjoy answering the questions about Korea, life here, dramas, etc. So.. not sure how this is going to shape up since we’ve still only been on YouTube less than 2 years, but we’re giving it a shot. Along with dropping questions in the comments or on our Facebook page, you can now direct any and ALL questions to askhallyuback@gmail.com Why not? ^^

Thank you everyone for your continued support, we couldn’t keep making videos like this without you! Love you guyz! ☺