Korea, without the guesswork.

What it is

K-OREA is a single iOS app holding five tools for a trip to Korea: a hand-checked map of places worth going, a K-pop location layer, a camera that reads Korean menus, a taxi fare sanity-check, and a way to find an open pharmacy at 11pm. It covers Seoul, Busan and Jeju. Content and menu results come in English, Japanese and Chinese.

The five tools

• Map

  308 spots, each one checked by hand.

  • Seoul 210, Busan 39, Jeju 47 — these three regions are the whole map today, not a sample of a bigger one.
  • Every published spot carries a photo.
  • Sorted into categories like K-Food, K-Drama, K-Beauty, K-Heritage and K-Nature.

• K-Star

  84 K-pop pilgrimage spots across 22 artists.

  • Music video and shoot locations, agency buildings, official goods stores, and fan landmarks that are actually documented.
  • Stalking-risk locations are deliberately left out: no homes, no schools, no real-time whereabouts.

• K-Menu

  Photograph a Korean menu and read what is on it.

  • Dish names in English, Japanese or Chinese, with spice level, allergen warnings, and how many people a dish is meant to serve.
  • A Korean order sentence, plus an order card you can hold up to staff.

  The translation is done by AI and it can be wrong. Treat it as a strong hint, not a guarantee — and check anything that matters.

• K-Taxi

  A fare range before you get in, and a check after you get out.

  • Fare-range estimates for Seoul and Jeju, worked out from the published metered tariff plus live route data. It is a range, not a quote.
  • A Driver Card that shows your destination in Korean, cached so it still works with no signal.
  • A post-ride check: was that fare in range?

  Seoul's taxi QR complaint system logged 487 reports from foreign visitors between June and December 2025, and unfair fares were the most common type. — Seoul Metropolitan Government, January 2026

• K-Care

  Find what is open right now, and be able to say what is wrong.

  • Pharmacies, 24-hour convenience stores, hospitals and emergency rooms near you, filtered down to the ones open at that moment.
  • One tap to 119 for an ambulance, and one tap to 1330 for a free 24-hour interpreter.
  • Symptom cards you can show a pharmacist instead of miming.

  K-Care is travel information, not medical advice. In an emergency, call 119 first.

What we won't pretend

Knowing where a tool stops is part of knowing how to use it. Here is where ours stops.

• AI translation gets things wrong. K-Menu reads a photo and interprets it. It is usually useful and occasionally wrong, and you should read it that way.
• Allergen detection is a text match, not a medical check. It is best-effort matching on what the menu says. If an allergy is serious, ask the restaurant directly — every time.
• Taxi numbers are a range, not a fare. Traffic, route choice and tolls all move the real number. The range tells you when something is off, not what you will pay.
• K-Care is travel information, not medical advice. It helps you find an open pharmacy and explain a symptom. It does not diagnose anything. In an emergency, call 119 first.
• Three regions, not a country. The app covers Seoul, Busan and Jeju. If you are heading anywhere else in Korea, it will not help you yet.
• The interface is English only for now. Content and menu results come in English, Japanese and Chinese, but the app's own screens have not been translated yet.