안녕하세요!
Oh hi! I’m Johanna
I am Johanna and I am a designer and the face behind the Korean Picnic blog. I am an Australian designer living and working in South Korea. I work at a startup as a designer, make YouTube videos at late hours of the night and have been writing on this blog since 2017. I also volunteer as a community leader in the Seoul Startups community. My other hobbies include drawing faces, watching bunnies eating strawberries on YouTube and getting lost in new areas of Seoul.
I started Korean Picnic as a way to chronicle my study abroad semester at KAIST in 2017 as part of Australia’s New Colombo Plan. Prior to that, I documented my love for Japan on a blog called Jopan that I started in high school!
Read as I navigate life as a foreigner in Korea with my husband, working in the EdTech startup world with the dream of one day starting my own company.
The Korean Picnic Story
(So Far)
August 2017 / Semester abroad at KAIST, Daejeon, Korea
I first came to South Korea in the Korean Summer of 2017. I was an exchange student at KAIST in Daejeon and studied in the School of Industrial Design. This is how my blog came about. I used it to document my travel in Korea. A few years later, I renamed it ‘Korean Picnic’. You can read more about my experience studying at KAIST here. It was on this serendipitous trip that I would manage to meet my future husband and make South Korea a big part of my life.
December 2018 / Moving to Seoul and Working as an English Teacher
I moved to Seoul on Christmas Eve in 2018. I began working as an English teacher in a Kindergarten… which I quickly started to hate and left as soon as I could… You can hear about the lessons I learned from that experience in this YouTube video to see if teaching in Korea is right for you!
March 2020 / Working as an Interior Designer During a Pandemic
In March 2020, I became an official non-English teacher in South Korea. I began working with a company in the interior design industry. I learned a super-sized amount about design, work and people from this experience. It was short and sweet, but I will always be grateful to the people who took a chance on me and showed me the ropes of their world. It just turned out that I wasn’t really good at or fond of the ropes to begin with.
August 2020 / Going into the world of tech startups in Korea
After a short stint as an interior designer, I realised that it was not the path I wanted to take. I studied to be an industrial designer and I knew I had to work in tech or with products. I wasn’t really cut out for interiors. So, an opportunity came up and I took it! I am still in the tech industry in Seoul, just now at a different company to where I started. Careers abroad are tough to figure out, but I believe you just have to keep learning and growing and follow the things that make you excited to wake up every morning. Here are some videos that talk about careers in Korea.
April 2021 / Our Wedding in Korea
In April 2021, we finally managed to celebrate our marriage in front of close family and friends. After cancelling and postponing weddings and navigating a pandemic, we did it! You can check out the video here and watch our Honeymoon videos!
August 2021 / New Startup Job, New Me
In August 2021 I moved to an EdTech startup here in Seoul. I am now working as a product manager and learning A LOT about how digital products get made, enhancing my design skills, learning new skills and just trying to get through the weeks. It’s chaotic but I am doing my best to show up, get shit done and learn something. I’ll keep you updated on where I go from here….
Get in Touch with Korean Picnic
Want to be featured on Korean Picnic or talk about a project? Send an email to share your ideas or just say a quick hello to Johanna!
Korean Picnic 