Seoul - Food & Eternal Cloudiness of the Jetlagged Mind

Continuing our time in Seoul, on Monday morning Paul woke up early and got Angel-in-us coffee. After getting up and around, we took the train to Seongsu dong. We had heard this was a fun and youthful "up and coming" neighborhood to explore. Unfortunately, we found that nothing opens early in Seoul. There are a million cafes but many don't open until 11am or even early afternoon.  Not a good match for jetlag! We did find a highly rated cafe, Onion, that opened early enough so we made that our first stop. We had drinks and pastries in a neat converted building. It was concrete and brick minimalism, with interesting nooks and crannies to sit in. There was some outdoor space as well, but it was a rainy, dreary morning so we stayed indoors. Paul's vanilla bean latte was good and not too sweet.

David enjoying some morning snacks at Onion.

Onion grounds in an old industrial space.

After leaving Onion, we walked around the neighborhood a bit. We might not have been in the right area, or maybe it was too early, but it wasn't super exciting. Seemed like a quiet residential neighborhood. We made our way to the river, where it was incredibly foggy. We walked along the riverfront path, at times unable to even see across the river. The path was quiet on a chilly rainy morning, but is a great outdoor amenity for the city.

We turned back into the neighborhood, and went to a shopping area called Common Ground. It had just opened, so it was quiet, and it looked like maybe they were filming something in the courtyard. It's a neat space, with stacked shipping containers with stores and restaurants. We hung out for a bit before setting out to look for lunch.

The Han River shrouded in fog.

Lots of the Han River has bike/ped trails and parks.

There are a lot of markets in Korea. These mostly are for groceries and random household supplies.

Shipping container shops at Common Ground.

We found a nearby street that appeared to be a Chinatown area. It was lively, with lots going on. We had lunch at Songhua Shanxi Cut Noodles (송화산시도삭면). It was a small and popular restaurant, so we had about a 15 minute wait to be seated. The food was great, especially the noodles and soup dumplings. We also saw a direct example of Korea's plastic surgery culture, as a young (high school age?) woman at the table next to us had clearly had a very recent "coming of age" nose job.

After lunch we took the train to Dongdaemun design plaza. It's a neat futuristic building, part gathering space, part conference center, part tourist attraction, but it's not really clear what to do there. After walking around the long white space-age hallways and part of the roof, we set off walking toward Gwangjang market. It was drizzling again (our time in Korea was quite rainy), so it was nice to tuck inside the covered market. It's a touristy food market, and was quite crowded. We walked around the market for a bit but didn't get anything, before heading back to the subway.

The line to eat at Songhua Shanxi Cut Noodles.

Paul with his noodle soup!

Dongdaemun Design Plaza. 

Hechi is the mascot of Seoul. He's had a very "Cartoon Network" redesign since 10 years ago.

Just ginormous Hechi things!

Gwangjang Market near the city center.

We took the train to Insadong, the pleasant neighborhood just north of out Hotel. We were in the mood for a little snack and David had been craving patbingsu (shaved ice dessert) and we found some at a place with the very long name of Damjangyeope Gukhwaccot Annyeong Insadong, which had an equally long Korean name referring to the flowers on the wall outside the store (담장옆에국화꽃CCOT 안녕인사동점). From there we walked back to our hotel and relaxed while trying to wait out the rain. Finally we went for dinner, walking to the south through the Myeongdong pedestrian area to dinner at kkanbu chicken myeongdong (깐부치킨 명동점). Myeongdong is interesting because it has a lot of foreign tourists. We saw a lot of Japanese people, and some white people. It's a nice urban environment and quite lively.

Bingsu and other Korean desserts.

Last meal in Seoul; KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) and some tteokbokki!

The next morning we woke up super early (4:45am) and took a taxi to the airport. While almost everywhere in Seoul took credit cards (even American Express), we had pulled out some Korean won on the first day from an ATM, and had 55,000 won (about $41) left. The taxi came out to 54,500 won. Perfect planning! We had a pastry at Paris Baguette at the airport before boarding our flight to Singapore.

That wrapped up the first stage of our trip. We'd been to Seoul before (David had been twice before this trip), and noticed a few changes. We saw very, very few people smoking, and only a few people vaping. This is a nice change from a decade ago when it seemed like more people (especially older people) smoked cigarettes in public. One thing we did see a big increase of was people staring at their phones. While this is of course common in the US too, in Seoul it has been taken to a whole new level. Essentially 100% of people on the subway are looking at their phone, and many people when walking down the street. At some busier intersections the sidewalks have lights embedded into them that turn red and green, so people who are staring at their phones don't walk straight into the path of a car.

One other thing we noticed was more improvements in urban planning, but it's still a bit of a mix. Most of Seoul is very walkable and of course transit-friendly, but there are some extremely wide roads, including right outside our hotel. We utilized the bus system a lot more than our last trip - most buses essentially operated as bus rapid transit (BRT) with lanes completely separated from cars. We were excited to check out the city planning of our next stop, Singapore.

I Love Konglish 2.0

Once again we present to you a handcrafted selection of Korean-English (Konglish) from our recent trip to Seoul. Konglish makes us smile and we hope you will smile too. If you can't get enough, check out our last Konglish post from 2013.

I could think of a number that would make this more scandalous.

Fact. This is never that. But is that ever this? These are the questions the people want the answers to!

It's giving 1950s American south for me.

I think this is the name of a music bar (or maybe karaoke place). It's simple and fantastic marketing!

I think the place is named "Another Awesome" but the sale sign makes this a complete sentence!

It's important to "stay youth forever with your dreams" indeed.

The subtitle for Beok is "old future odd future." So, mission accomplished.

I can imagine the jingle for this is something like "🎵Got bad breath well don't delay! Put Poops in your mouth and have a great day!🎵"

But do we really thank oat enough? Makes you wonder.

Hechi is so happy, just like us when we visit Seoul!

Seoul Day 2: Hongdae, Insadong & Around

After our packed first day in Seoul, we still woke up by around 5:30am on the second day, which was a Sunday (thanks jetlag!). Paul grabbed some coffee from the GS25 convenience store across the street from our hotel, then we leisurely got ready for the day.

It was quite chilly in the morning, and we took a short walk along Cheongyecheon stream, which included an egret sighting. We visited Chongyecheon back in 2011; it's a great urban space where the city government demolished an unsightly elevated highway to uncover an old stream. The city was quiet this early on a weekend morning, and we enjoyed a walk past city hall and along the wall of Doeksugung palace. We stopped at the cute Jeongwangsu coffee shop and had a delightful "matcha spanner." We learned that a spanner is a popular Korean drink based on the Vienna Einspänner, and essentially just means it comes with a layer of whipped cream.

Cheongyecheon stream early in the morning.

Paul walking across the stream.

Seoul city hall has some wild architecture.

Chicago style pizza in Seoul!

Walking along the palace walls.

A yummy pastry and matcha drinks for breakfast.

Our next stop was the Seoul Museum of History. On the way there we walked through the Donuimun Museum Village for a few minutes. It's an outdoor series of buildings that preserves the look of Seoul in the 1950s and 60s. It was an interesting place to spend a few minutes wandering.

The Seoul Museum of History was a nice stop, with good exhibits on the history of the city, and a really cool massive diorama of the city with a light show.

We happened to walk by the Canadian embassy.

A building in the Donuimon Museum Village.

Uh, what?

The city diorama.

Replica of a 1980s Seoul apartment.

Before and after photos showing development in the city.

After the museum, we wanted to get some dalkgalbi for lunch in Hongdae. Hongdae is a "cool people" neighborhood near Hongik University. This is a very popular nightlife district which also features a long semi-pedestrianized shopping street. To get from the city center to Hongdae, we hopped on a bus, which ran like a BRT and was super easy. We wandered around and did some shopping (including "Muzik Tiger," a great pop-up store) before getting lunch.

Getting around Seoul is in general is super easy using public transit and walking, but unfortunately, as of Spring 2024, Google and the Korean government are in a dispute about where and how travel data is stored on servers, rendering Google Maps basically useless. This means you have to use Korean-produced mapping and travel apps for navigation. Naver was the app recommended to us, and was pretty easy to use overall. Just something to keep in mind until the dispute is resolved!

When we visited back in 2011, we went to a nearby neighborhood (Sinchon) for dalkgalbi and pretty much have loved it since then. Dalkgalbi is basically chicken with gochujang (pepper paste) with cabbage and rice cakes (tteok) that you usually cook for yourself on a large grill. This is one of the few Korean foods that we can't find in Atlanta, so this meal had been talked about and planned weeks in advance! This trip we went to Shin Migyeong, which was tasty but came to our table already cooked. Fortunately we still got to heat it and let all the flavors combine at our table.

Hongdae bear, why you gotta be so fly?! Also...why are you coming out of the sewer!?

Hongdae shopping street.

Cute Shop!

David digging into the dalkgalbi. We think this is a must-eat dish when in Korea.

After lunch we walked around in Hongdae more, popping into shops and doing some people watching. One thing we noticed this trip in Korea, that we didn't ten years ago, was the proliferation of shops where (mostly) girls enter to take photos. It seemed like the shops offered props, good lighting, backdrops, etc. There were legitimately dozens of these places in the ~ 1 km walk we did along Hongdae Shopping Street. After noticing them here, we started noticing them all over Seoul. I guess they're just a fun thing you can do and reminded us a bit of the photo both type kiosks we saw in Tokyo back in 2011 as well.

Eventually, we reached the end of the shopping street at AK Plaza. This was a very narrow department store/mall with each floor themed to a different genre of shop. We noticed some Final Fantasy/Anime content outside, so we figured we'd pop in and look around. At the top floor was a Square-Enix Cafe (which we were planning on visiting in Tokyo in 2 weeks) and a ton of gamer, anime, trinket and clothing shops throughout. This shopping center was extremely packed and very lively with people eating at food stalls and popping in and out of the shops.

The opposite side of the AK Plaza was the start of the Gyeongui Line Forest Park. This park is a rail-trail, similar to the Beltline in Atlanta along an old abandoned rail line. It's basically a kinda small sidewalk beside a nice strip of grace/trees nestled in the neighborhood extending about 1 km from the end of the Hongdae Shopping Street. It goes through some really cute neighborhoods and, even with the weather not being the best, was very well utilized by people going from point A to B or walking their dogs. Overall a nice amenity for a city that is a bit light on parks.

David in front of a Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth ad.

Gyeongui Line Forest Park

They left a bit of the rail here and there for aesthetics.

At the end of the Gyeongui Line Forest Park, there's a cute little coffee shop that Paul read about before we started the day. The place is called Coffee Nap Roasters and is a really unique space with hilly brick floor (yes, a brick hill, check out the photos) and limited seating around the sides. You're able to sit on the slope if you'd like, but no one was while we were there. The drinks were really nice here, and overall Korea has a really good coffeeshop scene with good attention to detail, good variety in types of drinks (since David doesn't drink coffee) and really interesting interior design. Paul loved his coffee (#420), which was an iced coffee with flavored foam and David enjoyed his floral milk tea.

After sitting for a few mins, we walked around the neighborhood (Yeonnam) a bit before heading back towards the city center. There were lots of cute little pedestrian alleys. The area was nice and quiet and there were a several little restaurants and coffee shops. Honestly, we're not sure how so many coffee shops stay in business in Seoul. 

Coffee Nap Roasters' interesting layout.

Paul's flavored foam iced coffee.

Yeonnam Neighborhood is super cute and quiet.

Next we took another bus from Yeonnam to Insadong to visit Jogyesa temple. Jogyesa is a Buddhist temple near the center of Seoul that we visited back in 2011 and really enjoyed. Unfortunately, the weather turned pretty bad and cut our time wandering around Insadong short. Before it started raining too hard, we did manage to look at Jogyesa a bit, walk around some Insadong shopping areas (including a 4 story complex with a winding path through about 50 shops), and find our way to the Michelin bib gourmand Gaesong Mandu Koong for an impromtu late second lunch (or early dinner depending on your point of view). Gaesong specializes in dumpling and jeon (savory pancakes). We shared a small jeon and variety pack of six dumplings. This restaurant is pretty touristy, and probably not our favorite meal of the time in Seoul.

After eating we tried to wander around the Ikseon-dong area, which has lots of traditional/older Korean houses that were converted to nice bars, restaurants and shops but it was too crowded and it started to pour so we just made our way back to the hotel to rest for a while. The walk back to the hotel was about 20 minutes and we got very wet... 😞

Cool building we walked past.

Gate leading towards Jogyesa.

The weather took a turn for the worse...but still a cool tree!

Who doesn't love a good juxtaposition?

Jogyesa is a favorite location from our last trip to Seoul.

Walking through Insadong in the rain towards dumplings.

This was an awkwardly timed meal, but there's always room for some dumplings and a jeon.

Courtyard in Ikseon-dong area. There are lots of hanoks and renovated shops here. Wish we had more time to look around before the rain!

After resting for a while, and considering we had just eaten dumpling and jeon, we decided to skip a bigger meal and to hit up a cocktail bar instead. This trip, across 3 of the 4 cities (not Tokyo), we made a point to visit cocktail bars. Overall, these were good experiences but we found that the flavors were generally more subtle than the US and the drinks very light on alcohol. We had no trouble with 2 or 3 drinks at most places we visited, which, in America or Europe, would have left us more tipsy.

To kick it all off, we visited a speakeasy cocktail bar we saw on a youtube video near our hotel in Myeongdong named Sookhee. The interior and menu were really cool, but the place is hard to find. Basically, you have to walk into an alley, go up an elevator to the 4th floor (which seems empty when you arrive) and then hit a button to have a machine open a door for you. Just google around if you want more details on getting in.

While here, we ordered a burrata with gochujang and perilla leaves as a snack and got a couple cocktails each. The interior design was really cool and the menu is on a scroll they roll out for you. Overall the place had a really nice atmosphere and was fairly crowded, but we only had to wait about 15 minutes to get a table.

The menu at Sookhee was on a scroll they rolled out for you. The drawings were really cute.

Super fancy, if not super alcoholic cocktail.

Probably the best drink we had, Korean pear and gin.

Burrata with gochujang on a bed of perilla leaves. Odd but good.

Interior design was a solid A. Looked a bit like a Korean Buddhist temple but with lots of mother-of-pearl pictures.

Heading back to the hotel through Myeong-dong in the rain.

That wrapped up the day in Seoul. We went to bed and crossed our fingers for less rainy weather the next day, which would be our final day in the city before flying to Singapore.