Okpo

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View of Okpo

Okpo is a town located on the Eastern coast of Geoje Island, South Korea beside the DSME (Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering) ship yard. A large portion of DSME employees live in Okpo, and can be seen roaming the streets at night in groups wearing their DSME jackets.

There are very few standalone houses in Okpo, most are high-rise apartments. Since a lot of westerners are sent to Okpo as part of their jobs there are over 50 Western bars, two dozen western restaurants. There is also a large selection of Business Rooms, although they are rarely frequented by westerners.

Despite the fact that there are over 5000 westerners (and their families) living in Okpo and the neighboring town of Gohyeon (which houses Samsung Shipyard) the town, along with the majority of Geoje Island has very few western amenities with regards to food stuff and other relatively vital resources.

Furthermore westerners can expect to be charges exorbitant amounts for such things as rent (which runs at an average of $2200 per month for an average sized apartment), to anywhere up to 38$ for a steak. This is due to no other fact that Koreans see a tremendous business opportunity in profiting from the westerners presence by charging them, on average 5 times more than Koreans. Although this strategy seems fair to the locals (whereas in most other developed countries such price-fixing towards ethnic minorities is illegal). However at most chain stores the prices are the same as in other parts of Korea.

There are ferrys to and from Pusan four times a day. Journey time is approximately 50 minutes.

GPS Coordinates: N 34°53'17" E 128°41'37"