Thank you for the great post and very right collection of foreigners-friendly stores in Korea.

I have lived here for 12 years and seeing the language barrier in the shops you mentioned, we have started an online grocery marketplace startup called “shejang” where we have products from many different countries and cultures. Our services are completely in English and we have Dawn Delivery and delivered before 7 AM in morning in Seoul and Gyeongi. We are delivering all over Korea within 24 hours. We have partnered up with the largest international grocery mart in Itaewon called “Foreign Food Mart”.

Our objective is to make life of fellow expats easier in Korea.

Thank You ~~

Is it an easy place for a family from the States to move and feel comfortable?

For many good reasons, I have personally built a new “Yelp” like local directory search site in ENGLISH for South Korea called CoreaLocal. The site is finished and super clean. Also, it is FREE to join and you can even log-in with your Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ account.

At the moment, there’s not a whole lot of listings yet but as we all contribute to it, it should become meaningful and helpful to fellow English speaking folks who live in or visit Korea.

@Richard: Apologies for the delayed response…
Yes, EXCELLENT tip! Learning Hangul phonetics is a great tool, not only for pronunciation but for fooling a Korean into understanding your English! lol. Actually, I’ve used it to speak English when I don’t know the Korean word for something. Immensely useful because some Koreans actually know English but don’t always recognize the English pronunciation. I completely agree with you on all counts. When I first arrived in Korea, I knew some hangul but I never thought to apply it in the senses you’ve just explained and only over time, did I actually catch on as to how useful it could be even if I wasn’t well-versed in Korean!

Although I think Koreans are more tickled when they hear ‘foreign-looking’ foreigners attempt Korean. Not so much Asian looking foreigners. I get confused a lot w/ Korean or Koreans occasionally think I’m another Asian ethnicity, so I don’t always get the warm joy when I use the language and don’t speak it well. So in some cases, I actually reverted to pretending I knew less Korean than I did or pronouncing it really badly so they’d get the clue and… “Ahhhh” . LOL.

Yulia: Thanks for that contribution! Only recently after researching a possible trip to Japan did I realize that Daiso originated there! Very interesting.

@Conor: oops, apologies for the delayed response. Oh definitely not only 6, but those 6 were the ones I visited the most. 😉 But the list is open for additions if you’ve got some good ones! True, Ashley isn’t quite full veggie, but damn, they come close to the concept ‘international salads’, like cous cous and normal vegetable dishes! I don’t know why ‘salad’ is a hard concept in Korea.

As for Ashley…not sure how vegetarian they are…might need to pick and sniff a lot of their dishes first….

@Gray: Yes. We like to have our cake and eat it too. Damn us!