Anyone Playing in Changwon City, Korea?

Wow, there's a lot of history there in women's badminton. Most is under the name of Masan, which Changwon swallowed up recently. I have never been there myself but there are lots of clubs, as in every Korean city. The easiest to find might be at the main Masan Sports complex. There are apparently 7 courts and the Olbbemi Club plays there every evening from 7 to 9PM and other clubs seem to play there in the morning. The complex has a baseball and soccer stadiums but the courts are in a gym called Olympic or 88 Gym. Another place is the Oorinoori Youth Centre about 2km east of the Masan train station. There are clubs that play there from 9Am to 1PM and from 7-10PM on 7 courts.

Changwon is now a big place, though, so if you aren't near the Masan locations but if you have a contact there, there are 5 lists of clubs here: Euichang-gu, Seongsan-gu, Jinhae-gu, Masan Hoewon-gu, and Masan Happo-gu. If you know where the conference will be, you can post that here and I can try something more precise.

 

Well, the sports complex is about 10km west of you so that's not helpful. However, you can play at the Changwon Citizens' Gymnasium. It should be marked with an "A" on this map. The Namsun hotel is just straight down to the southwest of the 7-11 logo on the lefthand side of that map. basically walk up to E-Mart and then go WSW off that big circular park (on the road marked #25 on the map, keeping that giant stand of high-rise apartment buildings on your left) until you see a middle school on your left and the gym will be on the 4th floor of the building on the right. It's about 1.2km from your hotel. There seem to be clubs playing in that gym from 10-12, 13-15PM, 15-17, and 7-9PM.

I can't really do anything about the lack of information in English. The great thing about webpages or Google maps in Korean, though, is that taxi drivers can read them if you print them out or pull them up on a PDA, smartphone, or iPad.

 

Hi luxinh. Did you have any luck playing some badminton in Changwon last month? I'm assuming you are not still there.

 

is there any group in Changwon, Korea?

 

You can visit this website to find out more about Changwon, Korea and its surrounding places. There is a famous Changwon Sports Complex or we can call it Masan Sports Complex. I give you the map here. You can browse through the map given.

https://mostlymargaret.wordpress.com/tag/changwon-sports-complex/

There are also 5 badminton clubs in Changwon. Link for the clubs is here: Euichang-gu, Seongsan-gu, Jinhae-gu, Masan Hoewon-gu, and Masan Happo-gu.

 

Thank blabl for the reply.
My local colleague told me most of the groups are only opened to their members and language is the main obstable for me to join them.

I'm only here for a month and looking for weekend games to maintain my frequency of playing. Do you know any?

 

The best way for you is to just hop in to any badminton clubs in Changwon once you have reached Changwon. Just like you have said most of the groups are opened to members and yes they communicate in Korean language so everything is typed in Hangul at their website and it will be very difficult for you to even type something in Hangul at the website. Sorry I do not seem to know any groups of people playing badminton in Changwon area.

Best thing you can do is just come to Korea. Once you have reached Changwon and stayed at the hotel there, you can always ask the people at the management counter there the places to play badminton in Changwon and they will be able to introduce some badminton clubs in Changwon for you.

Cheers and have a nice day.

 

I know it's been a long time but there is already a thread open on finding courts in Changwon. I don't know if the moderators can/will move 5 posts from one thread to another.

Some of the information there is still current, including the existence of a badminton facility at the Masan Sports Complex, as mentioned by blabl above. In fact, you can still find reference to the Olbbaemi Club (#10 on the Masan Hoewon-gu list). The badminton facility is called the Olympic Memorial Gymnasium and details are at the 3rd tab above the photo here. One thing that is of interest there is the 2,500 won entry fee for badminton. That suggests that it is a subsidized, public facility that anyone can pay and use. As I've written elsewhere in this forum, that means you never have to feel you're breaking a rule or being parasitic by showing up to play. I find that you can still show up at a club that plays in a school but if you try to play at such a place more than 2 or 3 times, you'll be asked to join the club or stay away since the club typically pays to rent the gym for use by its members. Rarer still are clubs in schools that ask you to pay a guest fee. Neither of the last two cases applies to a public gym. There are still clubs that operate within public gyms but all members pay their individual admission fee just like non-members so those clubs are more like cliques. Some are friendly and welcoming and club members will play with any person who pays admission. Others are more close-knit and some players will only play with an outsider if they are unable to find 4 players for a game from among the people they know.

By the way, to clarify, the links that blabl included above are to 5 lists of clubs. There is a separate list for each of the 5 municipal wards (gu / 구) in Changwon. The city of Changwon is larger in area than Seoul so if you find that the Masan Sports Complex is too far away from you, you can take blabl's suggestion of asking someone like a hotel employee to look at the lists of clubs and suggest a gym closer to where you are staying or working. I wouldn't recommend asking for advice from someone who doesn't play badminton without referring them to the club lists on badmintontimes.com If you just ask a non-player where you can play badminton, you're liable to get suggestions involving outdoor courts, parking lots, or sports facilities that aren't open to recreational players. Good luck.