Best After-School Activities and Youth Sports in Pohang: Where Not to Drop Your Wallet or Your Phone

okay so you’re in pohang now and you need to figure out what to do after school without kicking your student loan down a flight of stairs or into a river. maybe. i don’t know. i’m here with a coffee that’s probably already gone cold and a headache from last night’s all-nighter. let’s talk about pohang.

first off, safety. i heard a rumor from a guy who looked like he’d rather be sleeping at his desk than here. he said something about pohang being ‘surprisingly safe for a city that smells like factories.’ i don’t know if that’s true. i’ve never been in a fight, but i also haven’t been mugged. maybe it’s a wash. rent? okay, so your options are probably not ‘a condo in a beach district’ but if you want something that doesn’t feel like a glorified cardboard box, aim for $800-$1,000 a month for a studio. shut up, i know that’s not cheap, but at least it’s not p(idxete) or whatever.

now onto activities. you’re a budget student, right? no fancy bjj gyms or esports clinics. let’s talk free or cheap. first up: the old industrial park near the seashore. it’s like someone took a factory and painted it pastel pink. there’s a skate park tucked behind a shuttered bakeshop. i don’t know how it hasn’t collapsed, but it hasn’t. hit it up on a weekend. probably not monday. they might actually fine you for using rusty equipment.

blockquote: ‘i swear, the concrete here is so loud when you skate on it, it’s like your bones are screaming,’ someone told me last week. i don’t know if that’s true, but i throw my phone in bushes sometimes. next to the park is a community garden. not the ‘instagram grass’ kind. more like ‘we planted beans and now they’re dying.’ but someone might teach you how to fix that. or maybe not.

let’s talk sports. do you want to run? pohang has this weird park with a track that loops around a lake. it’s not fancy, just asphalt and a few trees. i ran there once and a pigeon tried to eat my shoelace. that’s the wild west of after-school sports. soccer? there’s a league at a middle school, but you have to carpool with a kid whose mom owns a taekwondo studio. that’s not a bad thing? maybe. karate? nah. unless you want to pretend you’re in a korean action movie.

data table time. here’s the cost of living. i made this up because i’m lazy.

ok, but here’s the real data. pohang’s job market? it’s not silicon valley, but there are factories hiring for… stuff. like, real stuff. not memes. if you speak korean, maybe you can get a part-time gig at a kimchi factory. if not? dunno. just don’t burn down the place.

weather. it’s like someone forgot to turn on the ac. humid, sticky, and if you step outside at 3pm, you’ll either sweat or freeze depending on the cloud cover. neighbors? the people living near me are probably factory workers or students who haven’t learned how to lock doors. don’t invite them over.

blockquote: ‘last week i saw a guy trying to sell meatballs out of a cooler by the pedestrian bridge,’ another rumor went. don’t ask me how he got them to pohang. maybe he’s a genius. maybe he’s hallucinating.

last thing: pohang isn’t pretty. it’s not a postcard. but it’s not trying to be. the beach is there, but it’s crowded with tourists who think ‘seaside’ means ‘where i can buy frozen dumplings.’ the street art? it’s definitely there. i saw a mural of a giant hand holding a fish. that’s cleaning up the water. probably.

links: check out the pohang forum on reddit for sketchy advice. tripadvisor has a place called ‘the fish drama’ which is a food stall. yelp says the track park is ‘okay if you like concrete and pigeons.’ not all bad.

p.s. i didn’t proofread this. i’m too tired. you should too.