30 minutes to Maastricht.
50 minutes to Aachen.
Liège, for me, is a really, really small town. But then again, there's only a handful of cities in Europe which come close to Seoul's 10 million (unless you count Istanbul with its 14 million, but that's another issue). London: 8 million. Berlin: 3.5 million. Madrid: 3 million. Rome: 2.8 million. Paris: 2.3 million (only!).
So, every time you meet a Korean, take a wild guess, and ask them if they're from Seoul. There's a 1/5 chance they are. And a 1/2 chance they're from the Seoul Capital Area (25,6 million inhabitants from Seoul City, Incheon City, and Gyeonggi-do Province, making up 49% of the Korean population).
Korea's second biggest city, Busan, has about 3.5 million inhabitants, being in the 3 million league along with Berlin in central Europe (3.5), Pyongyang in North Korea (3.2), Cape Town in RSA (3.7), Jedda in Saudi Arabia (3.4), and Nairobi (3.1).
Note: North Korea surprisingly counts nearly 25 million inhabitants.
Note: Amsterdam only has 780,000 inhabitants.
The good thing about Liège is its location. Within a 1-hour radius (train time) lie Brussels (BE), Aachen (DE), Cologne (DE), Maastricht (NL), and Eindhoven (NL). Another hour, and I'm in Antwerp (BE), Bonn (DE), Luxembourg, and could probably hit some small villages in France. However, none of the cities are as dynamic as Seoul. There's history, yes, but nothing young people would find fun to want to keep coming back again and again, such as what Amsterdam and Berlin offer, regardless of their population. Not as much "fun" is the issue.
Here's a (obviously manipulated) photo of Seoul by night.
Image source: Google
How do you live in a giant city like that, and why are you Koreans so obsessed with Seoul (and cities in general)? is a question some people have asked me. It's simple. You grow up in one. Then you get bored everywhere else. Hey, we can fit the whole of Sweden in our capital and still have space left over. Why don't you let us move some of our people so they don't have to literally live on top of each other? Or better yet, maybe we could get two countries, Denmark (5.6) and Finland (5.4) to swap with us. With Finland's depressing winters and Korean high schools, we could become the permanent world leaders in teen suicides.
I've had a conversation with my friend Chelsea (who is also, like me, a big fan of big cities), which went like this:
I: Where would you live if you could live anywhere in Europe?
She: Maybe London? Paris?
I: Not Amsterdam? I'd totally live there.
She: Amsterdam is tiny.
Looking back, she'd probably not live in Paris. The non-existent customer service and two-month summer holidays where everything draws to a halt would drive her crazy.
There's simply more things happening in bigger cities. And more job opportunities (although Ulsan has the highest GDP per capita with its nearly 80,000 USD - close to that of Luxembourg). Seoul's GDP per capita stands at 40,000 USD, equal to the average in France. Also, the next biggest cities in Korea drop to 3 million and under, which means there aren't many cultural activities. Art, music, exhibitions, parties, clubs, restaurants, people. There's new things happening everywhere.
In summary: In Seoul, in Manhattan, in Tokyo, you can decide what you want to do at night on your way out the door. "Well, I could do this! I could go to this area to eat, this other area to have fun, and get home with the night bus/metro". That's simple impossible in smaller cities, because (a) there aren't that many things happening; (b) there's no public transport after midnight. In Liège, I'm the Cinderella of the Place Saint-Lambert because 00:05 is when the last bus leaves (technically, I'm one of the Cinderellas and Cinderellos).
Addedum: Cities by area / population / population density
Seoul: 605 km2 / 10,000,000 / 17,000 km2
Lyon: 48 km2 / 500,000 / 10,000 km2
Liege: 70 km2 / 200,000 / 2,800 km2
Maastricht: 60 km2 / 120, 000 / 2,000 km2
(All numbers approximate and rounded)
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