You really want to buy a few groceries for the house, but you can’t read or speak Korean well, or at all, and going to the store gives you anxiety. Don’t worry about it – Because pretty much everything in Korea deliver and that includes the grocery store! Honestly you can get just about ANYTHING delivered so don’t worry about it. “Yeah you say don’t worry about it, you’ve lived in Korea for years and can speak the language – easy for you to say Mija” I hear you scoffing. Here is the truth though – when I originally moved to Korea and couldn’t speak a lick of Korean, I still had groceries delivered. Use Chrome and make sure that it always translates Korean BOOM – problem solved. The major grocers and HomePlus, E-Mart and LotteMart and all of them deliver! Just make sure you have your address in Korean handy and you’re fine. Your housing contract will have your address in Korean on it, and if you’re working here I am sure someone at your company will tell you what your address is. Which brings me to a mini PSA in this post… make sure you have Korean installed on your laptop AND your cell phone. It will make life MUCH easier. Now, back to the all important food stuff.
As mentioned earlier every major grocer delivers and they deliver good quality items. the produce in Korea is Farm to Table so what is delivered to you is always good. I was worried at first abut the things that I would get because let’s be real – you don’t always get awesome produce delivered to you in the US so I would much rather pick it myself. When I got my first box and it was all good stuff I was happy. Then I ordered again and I still had great produce. It’s just normal here – you get good produce. After you get comfortable you can go into the store or continue to have things delivered. I do a combination of both.
Maybe you want to support the local farmers. No problem! There is an awesome service called SlowBox that you can use. This post is in no way sponsored by SlowBox I genuinely like the service so I’m telling you about it. The best apple juice I ever had in my life came from SlowBox. The other great thing about SlowBox is you can view the page in English. I highly recommend them: https://eng-slowbox.imweb.me/whatisbasket
Ok so remember I said basically EVERYTHING delivers in Korea? For years I’ve been using the app YogiYo to order delivery food. The app is all in Korean BUT you can also access the website and if you use Chrome it translates into English for you. The main difference between the app and the website is on the app you can prepay whereas on the website it’s all COD so you pay the delivery guy. I prefer to pay in advance so I just open the door, take my bag and go on about my business. I’ve included a nice link on how to use Yogiyo that was written by one of the big recruiters here in Korea so some of you may have seen this before.
How to Use YogiYo: https://www.korvia.com/ordering-takeout-seoul/
There are several other delivery apps you can use, get comfortable with one and the rest are basically all the same. There are even TV commercials for delivery apps so you are sure to always find what you want.
Today was a short post but I thought this was good basic info and something I absolutely wish I had known before I moved to Korea.
Moving To Korea - and other things about Life in South Korea 