Hooker Hill, Seoul Yongsan-gu - Gays, Transgenders? You asked for it!

I'm very sorry, Lee Haru and Kim Yoon-woo - your fathers are traumatized with this incident. 

Hooker Hill is a fairly well known little street in the Itaewon-dong Precinct of Seoul Yongsan-gu, where foreigners can get guaranteed sex at relatively low process. In fact, we have seen the dark side of Itaewon Precinct, instead being as an Islamic Quarter in Seoul Special City.

South Korea has a massive domestic sex industry, probably even rivaling the massive fuzoku availability next door in Japan. Also like Japan, most of the sex shops here are off limits to foreigners. One easy way around that has long been to simply visit “the Hill” in Itaewon, the main “foreigner area” in this homogenous country.

Only a block away from a main road, Hooker Hill is as easy to find as it is to miss. The direct way to get there is to take exit 3 out of Station 630: Itaewon Station on SMRT Line 6 via Bogwang Elementary School (보광초등학교/Bogwang Chodeunghakgyo), walk to the first corner, make a right up the hill, and make a left at the next corner. You are now on Hooker Hill.

After sunset on any given night, Korean prostitutes of varying levels of age and beauty enter the small “bars” on this little street to meet customers. Some will wait out on the road. Others will wait behind the doors. Whenever a lonely looking guy or two strolls up or down the hill, they will call out to him, maybe even lightly grabbing him by the arm. Their goal is to get you inside, get your pants down, get a load out, and get some money. The current level of police pressure seems to dictate how wild their public behavior will be. From your perspective, it’s really no worry, as customers are never bothered. If you're US military personnel, you may have a problem.

The street is short but it is jam packed with these little bars. Some are open or closed on any given day. At the very top of the hill there is a “regular” bar that is popular with English teachers. If you go beyond this you enter the realm of the transgender bars. If you see it, or any of the various Muslim owned shops way up on the mountain, you’ve gone too far.

Take your time strolling up and down the hill until you find something you like. You may go with the first hot chick you see only to see an even hotter chick on your way home. Then again, you may walk past a hottie only to find that she’s booked up for the next few hours when you try to return. Some of the women are hotter than others. Some are very hot. Some aren’t great, but they are dressed well. You won’t find out what’s underneath until later. In any case, there are always a good number of choices. When you are ready, leisurely make your way to the bar you’ve picked.

The bars all offer privacy, their doors usually made of black tinted glass or even metal. They only take one customer at a time. Once you enter, the door is locked behind you to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Sometimes there will be more than one woman. Sometimes there will be a mamasan. Some may ask you to buy them an overpriced lady’s drink. Most just want to get down to business.

If she can tell you are a newbie, you may be quoted a ridiculous price. Some guys say they’ve been asked 150,000 to 200,000 won. Some have even paid this. This is way above the market average. A little light negotiation can help if it’s necessary. The going rate is around 60,000 – 75,000 won for a short romp. Sometimes lower, sometimes higher, but never by much. Stick to your guns and act like you know what you’re doing and you will be fine. You can negotiate for nothing more than a blowjob or hand job if that’s what you like, but the real name of the game here is pump and dump full service. If you want a blowjob and hand job finish from a hot natural young Korean woman, you may be better off with a place like Cool or Belle in Gangnam.

After you agree on a price you will pay up, usually to the mamasan. Then the action begins. Some of these bars will let you fuck right on premises. Some have separate rooms for that. Others will have you discreetly run across the street to a guest house style room for the action. You should never have to pay for the room. It’s included in the price here.

Don’t expect too much in the way of service on Hooker Hill, especially if it’s your first visit. The girls are all about making money, so their efforts are aimed at getting you off as soon as possible so they can get to the next customer. It’s a numbers game for them each night. A lot of guys are into that, just giving them a hard shag to blow a load then leaving. 

With that said, some of these girls are hardened hookers, and no amount of sweet talk is going to change that. If you just want a wham bam thank you mam session, that’s widely available any day of the week with no effort required at all.

You can be explicit in your negotiations in the bar before you agree to anything, but if you drag things out you risked being shown the door. These women deal with a lot of drunken assholes and can be a little touchy. 

After you do the deed, your temporary date will clean you up and then expect you to pretty speedily get dressed and head out. You’ll usually get at least a goodbye. If you put in even a little work, things can become a lot warmer.

Hooker Hill is about the easiest place there is to score in Seoul without any effort whatsoever. Some of the women lack a lot in the looks and attitude departments, but others are really good all the way around. Taking into consideration all the other available action in Seoul, even limited as it is for foreigners, The Hill seemed to be losing a lot of steam in 2011, but it has since started to regain its former “glory,” for lack of a better term.

Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province - New Center of Prostitution Economy

Goodness! Incest in Pyeongtaek!

Khoogenakker, a blogger of Minneapolis to Seoul shared his experience going to the New Center of Prostitution Economy - Pyeongtaek City with his friend, Jon. They made a trip to Downtown Pyeongtaek after working hours and this is what happened to them when they were going to this forbidden zone.

"So Jon and I made a trip downtown after work today to find two Indian restaurants as well as two foreign markets – which was a successful trip and another story. As we were headed to Pyeongtaek Train Station in the KORAIL-Seoul Metro Line 1 to pick up the rest of our groceries, we went down a few streets we had never been down as this was unexplored territory.

Let me preface this by letting all of you know Pyeongtaek’s reputation. Our nice little city is known for being a dump filled with prostitution and just being dirty in general. We always figured the red-light district was up near the US Military base in Songtan Territory (a 15 minute drive from downtown Pyeongtaek). We ran into a small portion of it last weekend – with the pink neon lights outside turned on during a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We saw maybe five buildings with the neons outside and steered clear.  

Boy did we have the wool pulled over our eyes. Jon and I saw the whole thing by accident today. The red-light district of Pyeongtaek stretches for nearly a kilometer and is 3 blocks deep. Knowing we were further down than the station, we were looking for a shortcut. We saw a straight shot through the pink-neon lined streets to the station. I told Jon I could handle it and we started walking, heads down. Out of the corner of my eye I could see girls squatting down on the porches, barely clothed, in high heels, cigarettes in hand. 

It was hard not to want to see what was going on in these facades. When the neon lights were not on I felt like it was safe to look. Most of the units were merely glassed in porches equipped with a heater for the winter and a seat for the employees. Some of them had bottles and little cabinets in them. Behind the glass doors and ‘stage’ lay a single door in most of the storefronts. I don’t want to know what happens or what’s behind the door, but I know it made me a little sick to think about.  

There was an eerie empty feeling walking down the streets. Maybe a quarter of the lights were on and almost no one was on the street, with the exception of a few ajummas. Many of the ‘storefronts’ had draped black fabric over the road to serve as a barrier. It was uncomfortable knowing every open door we passed had willing women watching us walk by. Our want to be unnoticed probably made us stand out that much more.  

I think the weirdest part of this for me was yet another realignment of our view of Pyeongtaek. Not only in the past week have we seen more foreigners (and not of the white American variety) but we discovered for ourselves, this little subgroup of the population in Pyeongtaek, which we had until now not come into contact with but we also realized just how large the sex trade factors into our downtown. By didn't of confining ourselves to the more affluent, popular and safe area of downtown we had never come into contact with this. After walking through it to get to the station it was mind-boggling to realize that it literally extends to the plaza in front of the station, and we had never seen it by just pointing our faces forward and heading the opposite direction towards home. For me this has a lot of implications on what I choose to take notice of but, on the other hand, why would I ever want to notice the red light district in Pyeongtaek?  

I could go on for a while about the thoughts that go through my head when I think about situations like this, but I’ll save you from my philosophical dealings and end this slightly depressing post with something distracting."