My sister and I have pretty similar tastes. When we are itching to travel somewhere, we pretty much know that the other sister is going to be down. The food scene in Asia had been calling out to us for a while now, so once spring hit, we decided to flit off to South Korea! We stayed at a cute little Airbnb in Hongdae. Hongdae is the area of Seoul near Hongik University, which meant that the area was bustling with students, lively street performances, cute cafes, street shopping, and many many food options.
Getting Around
We highly recommend utilizing a portable wifi egg (some Airbnbs will provide it) to help you get around. Our friend (thanks Emily!) recommended that we download Naver Maps for navigation since Google apparently does not have access to South Korea’s map data, so a lot of the directions/navigations are quite off. The subway and busses in South Korea were extremely easy to use and the trains came about ~5 minutes (so fast). Head on over to your nearest convenience store to pick up a T-money card to use as convenient payment to ride public transport!
Things We Ate
Now let’s be real - the real reason we came to Korea was to eat, eat, and eat. Here are some of the delicious things we tried!
Myeongdong Kyoja: this Michelin recommended restaurant in Myeongdong has only 4 items on the menu – Kalguksu, mandu (dumplings), Kongguksu (bean noodles), and bibimguksu (mixed noodles). We wanted to order one of each but decided to portion control and try the kongguksu and kalguksu. The staff was so efficient and the food came out so quickly. We had barely been munching on the banchan – the Korean side dishes provided as sort of “appetizers” to accompany your meal – before our orders came out. The experience was quick and oh wow it was one of my favorite eating experiences in Korea!
Mandu: korean dumplings
Korean BBQ: grill the meat, sandwich it in between a large veggie leaf, add desired toppings + sauces (add gochujang if you like the sweet spicy taste) and voila – DELICIOUSNESS. We honestly just wandered down the streets & hopped into a restaurant when we felt the craving come on and had yet to have a single bad KBBQ experience after visiting multiple restaurants spontaneously
Strawberry items during strawberry season! We lived right next to a Paris Baguette and decided to stop on by for a quick breakfast one day, and stumbled upon the FLUFFIEST strawberry cream cake of our lives. We munched on some brioche and other pastries and everything was SO good. We slipped into a food coma soon after since we ordered more than we could handle, but it was a delicious choice nonetheless. We also had some delicious candied strawberries at the street markets (see below)
Green Tea Desserts & Drinks: we stopped by O-Sulloc in Insadong and had the most delicious matcha experience of our lives
Chimek: the infamous beer + chicken combo! The phrase “chimek” is literally a combination of the Korean word “chicken” with the Korean word for beer. The two go together hand in hand and is quite popular in Seoul! We stopped by Kyochon Chicken to grab some chimek and it was the perfect and most flavorful way to end a late night in Seoul!
Dakgalbi: this spicy stir fried chicken is marinated in gochujang sauce and we ordered the version in the stone pot COVERED in cheese. We met up with a friend of mine, Elise, from graduate school who took us to Gosoo Dakgalbi in Gangnam to try this yummy dish. Wow oh wow I did not expect how large the portion would be, but I was even more surprised at the fact that we finished the entire dish amongst the 3 of us. It was that delicious!! They even pour in rice at the end to soak up the rest of the sauce and to finish off the meal.
Jjimdak: a Korean braised chicken dished that had been on our minds since day 1 in Seoul and caused even more cravings after we tasted it. We walked by the same store in Hongdae every day and decided to finally get our jjimdak fix at Premium Jjimdak. I still dream about this jjimdak on the regular.
Bossam: korean wraps consisting of thinly slice boiled pork belly is often served to be wrapped in cabbage leaves alongside a radish salad and slated shrimp.
Convenience Stores Snacks: the convenience stores in Asia are known for carrying amazing Asian food and snacks that surpass the quality of foods at the equivalent in the US. At a 7-Eleven, we bought a couple different flavored milk drinks (peach and banana), some seaweed, honey butter chips, and we decided to create our own instant noodle bowls meal. Right next to some tables in the 7-Eleven where you can sit to enjoy your snack/meal, there was a hot water station for you to make your instant noodle bowl right then and there! Since the particular store sold medium boil eggs and imitation crab, we decided we throw some into our instant noodles and create a pretty decent and delicious ramen bowl for ourselves.
Street Food: our absolute favorite eat experiences really came down to a street food at the Korean night markets. Some popular places to find street food include myeongdong street market (our absolute favorite – we went back more than once), Hongdae, and Dondaemun Street Market. Below are just some of the street foods we tried!
Gyeran-ppang (egg bread), hotteok (Korean sweet pancakes), candied strawberries (or bing tanghulu), tokkebi (korean mozzarella corn dogs), Tteokbokki, kimbap, sundae (Korean blood sausage), kimchi buchimgae (kimchi Korean pancake), Jajangmyeon, Odeng (fish cake)
Mandu (korean dumplings)
Korean BBQ: the lady hopped outside to ready our meat & other KBBQ supplies!
Jjimdak dish at Premium Jjimdak
Bossam: pork belly to be wrapped in cabbage!
Meet Haerin - our sweet friend and tour guide for the afternoon!
Paris Baguette in Korea - super fancy and beautiful!
Chimek: Korean fried chicken with beer!
Some convenience stores in Korea, such as this 7-Eleven, have little tables for you to sit, relax, and eat!
Can we all take a moment to enjoy this beautiful rainbow cake I found at a Korean convenience store?!
Our 7-Eleven convenience store mini-haul
A makeshift instant ramen bowl lunch - all supplied with 7-Eleven items!
Gyeran-ppang (egg bread) on a street market stand in Hongdae
Candied strawberries (bing tanghulu): the strawberries were SO sweet and the sugary coating is very sticky so be ready for it!
Taiyaki (fish-shaped cake filled with red mean paste): technically a japanese snack but we stumbled upon this while walking around in the streets of Hongdae
Gyoza & Hotteok (Korean sweet pancakes): sold on the side of the streets at the Myeongdong Night Market
Tokkebi (korean mozzarella corn dogs): a little bit sweet on the outside since it is dipped with sugar & absolutely perfect for that cheese pull photo !!
Myeongdong Street Market Stand
Kimbap (Korean sushi) and Sundae (blood sausage)
Mochi and Red Bean Wrapped Strawberry: I bought like 3 of these, ate them all, then went back for more
Kimchi buchimgae (kimchi Korean pancake)
Milk Tea
While strictly speaking, a lot of these milk tea stores did not originate in Korea, there was no way we were going to Asia and not getting some milk tea! We probably had one (at a minimum) every single day we were in Seoul. We loved these spots so much that we visited them multiple times!
1. Tiger Sugar
2. The Alley
3. Black Flower Café (Heuk Hwa Dang)
Things We Saw
Bukchon Hanok Village: the well-known residential area is made up of beautiful traditional houses. Some of the hills overlook the tall city buildings in the far off distance, so I found the juxtaposition of the two types of buildings to be quite dynamic. The urban homes are made of wood and stone with detailed roofs and are home to actual residents that ask the swarms of tourists to keep a respectful distance and volume from and around their houses. We wandered many of the alleyways and admired the traditional urban homes!
Gyeongbokkung Palace: the large and main royal palace of the Joseon dynasty is another popular destination for tourists. We found that if you rent and wear Hanbok, traditional Korean clothing of the Joseon period, entrance to the palace is free of charge! You can rent Hanbok easily around the area, so walk around and find the best price for you!
Seoul Sky in Lotte World Tower: while visiting Lotte World tower (the tallest building in South Korea), we decided to hop on up to the observatory and check out the 360 view from the top of the tower. The elevator ride up was filled with moving graphics that surrounded us and the view at the top certainly did not disappoint! It even had sections of glass flooring so you could step out into the “sky” and feel your stomach drop a bit!
Line Friends Café and Store in Itaewon: Line Friends are cute little characters released by Line, the messaging app. They even had cute BT21 merchandise (all the BTS Army people know what I’m talking about) featured in the store! The huge store had a cute café with themed foods as well!
Walk Around Hongdae: you are guaranteed to be entertained just from spontaneously walking around! There is so much food, shopping, busking going on that we wandered on for hours and discovered new spots we never expected! We saw Korean couples pick each other up and spin them around like those slow-mo scenes in romantic comedies, we found teens recording videos of themselves rehearsing Korean popstar dance routines, and so much more.
Walk Around Myeongdong: this is shopping and eating central! Same as Hongdae, be prepared to just spontaneously explore! We noted down more restaurants to try than we had time for and did a majority of our shopping in this area!
cute little mobile takoyaki shop in the back of a red van!
Lotte World Tower
The view from Seoul Sky in Lotte World Tower!
Walking around Gyeongbokkung Palace in our rented Hanboks!
Bukchon Hanok Village: the traditional urban Korean homes
The Line Friends Cafe and Store in Itaewon: there were so many themed Line characters all over to buy and even eat (peep below)!
Shopping
While there are many places to shop, our two most visited areas for shopping included Hongdae and Myeongdong! We did not spend a lot of time shopping in department stores (like the Lotte department store) since we do not quite have the $$$ to do so, but we bought most of our favorite clothing/fashion items in street and alleyway stores. In Myeongdong, we found that there the options were more than plentiful and prices are often cheaper if you go downstairs into the stores. Keep in mind that most stores will not let you try on clothing items because they are afraid make-up stains will dirty their items, but this did not turn out to be too big of an issue for us!
Going to Korea of COURSE meant we had to stock up on the Korean skin products! Please do it!! Per our friend’s recommendation, we visited Baviphat, a wholesale discount face product store. They sell brand name skin products at a reduced price! We spent a LARGE portion of our shopping here (it was like crazily amazing). While some people claim they sell fakes, we have been using their products for the past year and it has been working pretty well for us, so use your own discretion! We personally loved shopping here so much, we went back multiple times to get more products. Some of my personal favorite brands (purchased both from Baviphat & the actual brand stores themselves) that I continue to use to this day include Laniege (get ALL the sleeping masks), CoxRx, Innisfree, and Missha (I still use their products to this day).
