Hello dear handful of readers out there in the blogosphere!
Recently I undertook a monthly blogging challenge with a lovely new friend (you can check out her blog
here) in the spirit of new year's resolutions and other follies. Although a monthly commitment seems light on, considering I blogged exactly zero times in 2018, it's nothing to scoff at! Another friend just told me that they are planning to visit Seoul later this year and I promised to give some recommendations. So here it is: my long overdue travel guide, January blog challenge, and, er, triumphant return to blogging! 😅😅
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| man I love this city |
We all want different things from travel.
As I've been to Korea
too many multiple times since 2010 and lived there for (not quite) a year, I've crossed off most of the touristy stuff (except Noryangjin fish market and
live octopus...).
My favourite thing to do in Seoul is wander around cute and/or hipster neighbourhoods, eventually stumble into an unknown restaurant/bar/cafe, and settle in to people watch or read a good book.
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| View from Fat Cat cafe on the Haebangcheon (HBC) strip on a rainy day...heaven |
My other favourite thing to do is travel far and wide for specific foods, often restaurants I found on
MangoPlate (
MangoPlate, please hire me and I will gladly curate all your best sweet/carby/ice cream spots lists.) In the early days of
Cinnabon Korea, before their rapid expansion throughout Seoul, I crossed town just to try one (and "crossing town" in Seoul could take you 90 minutes). Yes, WILL TRAVEL FOR CINNAMON BUNS.
ANYWAY, here are three of my favourite, slightly lesser-known Seoul neighbourhoods!
1. Buam-dong (부암동)
Buam-dong is a little neighbourhood in the north of Jongno (kind of north of the Gyeonbokgung area) near Inhwangsan mountain. It's very quiet and peaceful compared to most of Seoul, perhaps partially because you have to take a bus or a taxi to get there, instead of the subway. I think I first went to Buam-dong to check out the Sanmotoonge Cafe, where the
classic Korean drama "Coffee Prince" was filmed. There you can pay about $10 AUD for a lemonade, but the view and vibe from the outdoor patio is lovely.
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| Cafe entrance |
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| Back patio |
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| View from the back patio (my photography skills don't do it justice) |
My favourite cafe in Buamdong is called
Lumberjack and one of my favourite things to do was sit upstairs with a grapefruit "tea" (I think it was just grapefruit juice and pulp with hot water but meh, still good) and a cookie (their baked goods were not too shabby) and look out the window:
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| View from Lumberjack 💚 |
(As an aside, the best way to use this blog post is to take note of the neighbourhoods and cafes etc, and then google them for more detailed info elsewhere. Like
here.)
Gyeyeolsa Chicken in Buam-dong is one of the most famous chicken places in Seoul (which is saying a lot for such a fried-chicken-dense town). It comes with potato wedges like this:
The other thing about Gyeyeolsa Chicken is that they have always been friendly when I've gone in with other adoptees who don't speak Korean, which is nice 😬
My final Buam-dong recommendation is a Bingsu (shaved ice dessert) place called Boo-bing (부빙). Buam-dong has one main street so it's pretty easy to find. To be honest, bing-su is not even my thing, really, but this place is so cute!
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| Look how cute the shopfront is! (Sorry for not correcting this crooked photo) |
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| Salted caramel one with a salt shaker on the side |
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| The cutest one of all! |
Ok that's Buam-dong! There are a lot more cafes and restaurants in the area, including Scoff, the British-style bakery, if you've a hankering for British tea cakes and (American?) brownies, although this location is takeaway only. But I go to Buam-dong for the feeling, rather than any particular food place.
2. Seo-chon (서촌)
West of Gyeongbokgung Palace, there is the main road Jahamun-ro (accessed from Gyeongbokgung subway station exits 2 and 3) and just west of that main road, behind Tongin Market is a little area of cute streets comprising Seo-chon.
(NB: Both Buam-dong and Seo-chon are a short walk from
Koroot, if you happen to be a Korean adoptee staying there.)
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| A cute map of Seo-chon, from the wall of a cafe in the area. Probably not that helpful right now. |
What can I say except that this is an old neighbourhood of Seoul with a distinctive character. I used to frequent
Bap + a lot for lunch, for cheap homestyle Japanese-influenced Korean set menus. Tongin Market is also worth a visit and you can put together a dosirak/bento box-style tray of Korean street food from different vendors. Across the road, on the opposite side of Jahamun-ro, there is a traditional Korean tea house called
Solgahyeon where you can have a footbath and drink herbal tea for various ailments (fatigue, indigestion, etc) inside a traditional hanok. The whole thing costs about $30AUD but it's an experience.
Ok, enough of that, here are some photos to give you a feel of Seo-chon:
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| A Spanish tapas place called "Calle de Gomis" |
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| Cute napkin from Calle de Gomis |
Ok, that was a random mix of photos, but moving on!
3. Yeonnam-dong (연남동)
Seo-chon is a kind of hipster place, and so is Yeonnam-dong, shameless hipster that I am.
Yeonnam-dong is the collection of winding little streets filled with restaurants, bars and cafes, over to the right of the "Gyeongui Line Forest Park" (the word park is used loosely here to describe a converted old railway line with a nature strip on either side) when you get off the subway at Hongdae Exit 3.
It's a fun area to explore, and if you have no sense of direction like me, get lost in. There are also some good places to eat, including
B'mucho Cantina,
SF Bagels, and
Tuk Tuk Noodle Thai, and heaps of cafes. (Hmmm, I haven't really recommended any Korean food...which goes to show how much I craved variety while I was living in Korea, I guess.) You can also wander through
Dongjin Market, with craft and jewellery from independent designers on weekends.
Honourable mentions that I didn't get to fully explore:
4. Ikseon-dong (익선동)
When I left Seoul,
Ikseon-dong was the new "hot place" (a Korean term), although Seoul changes so quickly that there is probably another hot place by now. I didn't get a chance to explore it fully, but if you do, go to
Mil and try the steamed bread and let me know how it is please.
5. Mangwon (망원)
I only went here a couple of times, but there's a great (and cheap) market, with a
great little place where you can get
deulkkae kalguksu, my favourite korean noodles, a bunch of cafes and restaurants just outside the market, and some very cute, very small-looking bars.
(Hongdae, Yeonnam-dong, Gyeongui line forest park, and Mangwon are all in the same vicinity but maybe it would be too ambitious to attempt to cross them all off in one day...)
EXTRA: Some of my other favourite things to do in Seoul
- Ride a rental bike along the Han river
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| I love you Han river |
- Walk along Cheonggyecheon stream, day or night
- Go to the IMAX cinema in Yongsan's IPark Mall, apparently the biggest IMAX in the world now (Australia has bigger ones but they are not currently in use...it's all very complicated). I love this big fuck-off screen and surround sound system and I love the sweet-and-salty combination popcorn you can get in Korea. The whole experience will also seem like a STEAL compared to highway-robbery Australian movie ticket and snack bar prices.
- Go to Aquafield spa, albeit far away. I heard about this spa/jjimjilbang from Fleur de Libre's blog. Fleur is right, this is no crowded ajumma spa. This is a FANCY SPA.
Quick and dirty list of touristy stuff to do:
- Ihwa-dong/Naksan Park - cute area on a hill with murals and a nice view.
- Samcheong-dong/Buk-chon Hanok village/Insadong. You can hit up all three in one.
- Nami Island: It's a day trip. I went in Autumn and it was very pretty. Yes, it was busy and touristy. You can still manage to get a lot of pictures for the gram, but may have to wait for pesky korean couples to move out of your frame.
- Namsan Tower and cable car (day or night).
- Myeongdong (shopping, eating, a lot of street food and K-beauty stores). Kind of gives me a headache sometimes though.
- Dressing up in a hanbok and re-enacting old-timey stuff. I resisted this for a long time, it just didn't appeal to me. But my Korean aunt was gently persistent, saying "It's just something you should do once in your life". I did it with my sister (non-adopted) in Jeonju. IT WAS ACTUALLY A BLAST, so much so that I am willing to put up these photos in a public space.
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| LOLOL |
- Traditional markets - there are bunch, where you can try a lot of street food.
- The palaces (maybe one or two of the four is enough though).
- Hiking - there are so many mountains nestled throughout the city.
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| Me fighting the summer humidity, photographed by my friend Jes Eriksen. (Final tip: visit in Spring or Autumn if possible!) |
Ok, that's it and it's technically 1st February now so I have to go to bed and publish this post! Do let me know if you happen to read this post and actually explore any of these neighbourhoods. And thanks again to Judith from
Excess Bookage for being my blogging buddy :)
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