Level Buster
I assume that sometimes you may get a few days down there if the return is not daily.
There are a few rotations that have a few days down route. Personally I have never had one. The law of averages says that those trips will more likely fall to the Koreans. Whereas there is no bid system for trips as such, there would be no harm in you asking the scheduler if you could do a particular trip if you wanted to. That all said what we are noticing recently are trips where you position one way, and operate the other, rather then getting time off down route. For example we used to operate from Busan to Manila, have c24hrs off then operate Manila back to Busan. Now we seem to be getting rosters that have us position from ICN to Manila, we have about 12 hrs there then operate from Manila to Busan, or vice versa.
The flight time limitations seem quite good and I understand you fly about 65 hours a month.
The most I have ever done is 59hrs. The 65 hrs is the beginning of overtime IIRC. If you are used to CAP 371 then you will like the simplicity of the Korean FTLs, one thing you will find is that we have a few trips that operate like a "split duty". For example: ICN-Nigata, you get to the hotel at about 2100 hrs, and you leave the hotel the next morning at 0800 hrs.
How do you find the cost of living, ie food/drink while in Korea and do your per diems cover this.
Seoul is often cited as being among of the top 5 most expensive cities in the world. We are accommodated out at the airport, which is about 1h 15mins by bus from the centre of Seoul, which means you are pretty well stuck with eating and drinking at the hotel, or airport or locally to the hotel. Although we get meal vouchers and discounts all over the place I personally think it is expensive. The per diems are adequate, but probably shouldn't be seen as a way of "topping up" your salary.
If you didn't already know, whilst in Korea your per diems are paid in KRW, I don't actually know the rate but it works out at about USD 50-55 per day, and whilst outside of Korea you are paid in USD. The company will set up two bank accounts for you, one for your KRW and one for your USD, and you get paid your per diems by the 17th of the following month. You should also note that you don't get a per diem whilst you are "on duty".