Lunar New Year (LNY for short here) was in the month of February this year. So we decided to do something touristy and take a well rested break from shopping! Mind you, it took a great feat of effort to take photos in the cold since my fingers were being frozen inside my gloves. :(
Since usually three days leading up to LNY most things are closed, we were a bit worried when planning that we probably won’t be able to do anything since all the preparations will be for spending time with family and eating lots of yummy food.
What a typical LNY feast looks like. Delicious!
What will we doooo?! But lucky for us, there are some traditional places in Seoul that are opened all year round (even for free!) and during special times like this, all the folk cultural activities were being held. Fantastic! We spent our day visiting Namsangol Hanok Village and Korea House, both located conveniently close to each other.
Namsangol Hanok VillageJust making it on time for the performances at Namsangol Hanok Village, the performances included traditional fan dancing as well as drumming.The main courtyard of the Hanok Village had the most activities where visitors can play traditional games, giant Jenga and do arts and craft workshops.For a small fee, the arts and craft activities let’s you make traditional themed projects with an instructor. We made these paper outfit cards.
Namsangol also has a small art museum filled with beautiful Korean folk art which I appreciated since I really enjoy asian art. But NOTHING excited me more than when I saw this:
I don’t know why this was so special to me when I saw it!! I see this all the time in dramas where the couple makes a wish on a piece of paper and ties it to a tree. Even in some high school dramas/animes they have these scenes where they write something significant on paper that they wish will come true. And now I get to do it! 8 years of waiting!! LOL But I won’t tell you what it was! teehee ;)
Talyssa’s turn to tie her wish.Namsangol also has a very large pond in the middle of the grounds. It’ll look great sitting under the pagoda patio in the spring/summer time!Just outside Namsangol you can find some food stalls that sell street food and taiyaki!! (I’m not sure what it’s called in Korean ><)Nearly time to go to Korean House. But before that we went out to eat meat! Our efforts not to smell like we just came out of Korean BBQ failed when we found out the dish we ordered came with a gas stove. EepKorea HouseThe traditional performances at Korea House were such a treat! When we went inside the performance hall it was such a beautifully decorated theater with live percussion and string orchestra pits on the sides it felt so intimate, like a private session!Cudos to the art director! CONFESSION. I can be superficial when it comes to the looks of things. Glasses, engagement rings, book covers… but the performance visuals were just LOVE LOVE LOVE!! I loved it!! Each performance had it’s own stage effect like fog machine, lighting arrangement, BG change and props.
How to get to:
Namsangol Hanok Village
Take the train to Chungmuro Station on Line 3 or 4. From Exit 4 walk along Hanongmaeul-gil st. for 5 minutes.
Operating days
Apr-Oct: 09:00-21:00
Nov-Mar: 09:00-20:00
Closed every Tuesday (except if the Tuesday is a holiday, it is closed the next day)
Korea House
Take the train to Chungmuro Station on Line 3 or 4. From Exit 3 it’s very close from the exit.
Open all year round.
Traditional performances:
18:30-19:30 (first show) / 20:30-21:30 (second show)
There are other cultural programs to do besides the performances which you can book online.
pend an action-packed day at the world’s biggest indoor theme park.
As if Seoul wasn’t thrilling enough! Just a convenient train ride away from downtown is Lotte World, a giant beast of an indoor theme park located inside the Lotte World Shopping Mall.
Combining part of the shopping mall into the park’s experience (you know, if you ever needed to buy that Etude House makeup when your beat face gets screwed on the rides) this entertainment complex contains indoor and outdoor ride options, a hotel, Korean folk museum, an ice skating rink with daily live performances, parades and a nice selection of in-park eating options to fill the belly.
Rain, hail or shine, it’s the ideal place to ensure hours of fun without needing to leave. Let’s explore why Lotte World is the greatest time spent staying indoors.
There are 55 attraction rides in total including the Kidzone area to experience. Most rides inside the main building called “Lotte World Adventure” are a mixture of fun 4D rides, cart ride experiences, and arcade games while outside called “Magic Island” has the more mature variety of roller coasters.
It is important to note that there are a few rides that will require an extra fee on top of your standard entry ticket to enter such as the “Tomb of Horror” which was around 3,000 KRW.
As we arrived on a weekday, the queue wait for the more popular rides was quite reasonable but you will still be waiting in line, a lot! With Seoul’s human traffic, lines can be a 45 min wait and maybe longer on the popular rides which can be unbearable if you went in winter like us. There is a limited daily quantity of “Magic Passes” which works the same as a Fast Pass at Disneyland letting you skip the queue lines but you must purchase this as an admin ticket on entry and not from a ticket machine at the roller coaster. Alternatively, you can also purchase the Lotte Worl Magic Passes online in advance. It’s a bit more expensive but definitely worth it.
My personal favourite! Locate outdoors it’s a super high-speed roller coaster that can clock up to 72km per hour with twists, falls and turns. Best to line up early as it’s one of the most popular attractions.
French Revolution
The indoor version of “Atlantis” if you will. It’s a high-speed roller coaster that loops 360 degrees in-between the other indoor locations giving riders a uniquely thrilling experience.
Flume Ride
A water ride where you hop into a boat and tour a jungle full of dinosaurs before plunging down the final waterslide.
For the Cautious and Couples
The Adventures of Sinbad
Great for youngsters and mild cheap thrills experience the stories of Sinbad through an underground boat ride with talking temple walls, singing pirates and a fire breathing three-headed dragon.
Balloon Ride
An indoor hot-air balloon inspired ride that rotates above the theme park for a great view.
Inside the Lotte World Adventure area.
The huge ice rink in the middle of Lotte World Adventure.
aking a break from the screams of fun (or horror), another thing you definitely want to check out are the many event shows that run throughout the whole day.
Just like Disneyland, Lotte World too has parades with their own brand of mascot characters which make an appearance throughout the show. All parades and goods are themed for the season and when we went in January, it was called “Flower Festival.” Ironic, since January has to be the coldest, most painful winter month ever! Alas, Lotte World has decided on a theme that would chase those winter blues away and decorated the interior with many colourful beds of fake and real flowers as well.
Unfortunately, Lotte World does not provide a full list of their seasonal themes. Their site only displays the most current season, but according to KLOOK these are the themes every year:
Masquerade Ball
From March to June, the parade is themed like a masquerade ball with masked dancers performing on the dance floor.
Rio Samba
From June to August, Rio Samb dancers light the parade for summer with their extravagant outfits and powerful dance moves.
Halloween
From September to October, Lotte World is ready to celebrate all things that go boo!
Christmas
From November to December, Santa comes to Lotte World with everything decorated in the spirit of Christmas.
If you are sticking around until nighttime, the “Let’s Dream Night” Parade has flying lanterns, fireworks, and a light show to enjoy before wrapping up your time at Lotte World. As a one of a kind experience for families with children, children can apply to join in the parade and receive some exclusive gifts as well. How cool is that! Unfortunately, we were still waiting in line for Atlantis and missed the show but if you’re keen, make sure you don’t miss it at 8PM.
The day parade during Flower Festival.
Lotte World has their own gang of cute characters. Though, some designs are hilariously more, err, “adult” in nature.
An acrobat shaking onlookers’ hands.
Performance Shows
nother show to enjoy is the performances held at the Garden Stage.
The shows can vary from retellings of traditional stories to dancers showing off their choreography and it was fun to see many local and international dancers, actors, and even martial artists entertaining guests with their
moves and acrobatic skills. This was one of the highlights for me and it was definitely worth taking a break to watch.
The shows are also interactive and the performers will also ask audience members to join. At the end, everyone who joined will receive a free gift!
What to Eat
fter some rides and running around, Lotte World would leave you pretty hungry – a hunger that hotdogs and sugar popcorn can’t satisfy.
Lucky for us Lotte World not only has street food style options like pluto pups, chips,
and takoyaki but some real dine-in food like fusion pasta, steak, roast chicken, fruit smoothies, and oh yes, delicious traditional Korean food!
If you don’t want to binge eat on junk food, we definitely recommend checking out the pavilion outside on Magic Island for some satisfying Korean grub.
Lotte World Tips
GENERAL INFORMATION
ENTRANCE FEES
1 Day Park Ticket (Lotte World): Adult: 54,000 won | Child: 48,000 won
1 Day Universal Pass (Lotte World and Folk Museum): Adult: 57,000 won | Child: 50,000 won
Magic Pass Premium Ticket: Ride 5: 40,000 won | Free/Unlimited: 100,000 won
When you go travelling, it’s usually for two reasons: holiday or work/study. And when you hear about your friend’s student exchange for (XX) of those awesome months, you’re not only gonna be bitter about those awesome experiences, but also sour over all those new exotic friends they made (When. You. Were. Being. Replaced!! Ahh lolz).
But! For the unlucky few who have not experienced a foreign school experience for credit *raise hand* making friends overseas on your short time there (or most likely not even thinking about it because you so crazy busy), friendships can be hard to initiate. When we went to Seoul, we didn’t expect anything but we walked away with not only our shopping, but with some really nice memories of friends (both Korean and foreigners) we met during our trip. Friends who some are now our Facebook friends.
South Korea has some of the most generous, most hospitable strangers you will ever meet in a fleeting moment. It doesn’t matter if you can’t speak a word, just use the universal language of hand gestures to try your best to communicate and you’ll be understood soon one way or another. And ladies, Korean boys can be so gentlemanly helping you with your heavy luggage up or down the stairs even in peak subway human traffic! Swoon~ <3
So how do you meet Korean friends in Korea without going to university or work?
Well, probably the worst setting to make chit chat but the best to meet someone is…
…Clubbing!
Clubbing + Kpop = POWERHOUSE (bigbangupdates)
I don’t want to be smug *evil grin* but no one can top the experience we had when clubbing overseas, and I literally mean best. This has to be the B.E.S.T clubbing experience we had in our lives! When in NB1, a famous club in Hongdae owned by YG, we felt a little shy and out of place at the start. We went there at 10PM, a little early for clubbing, and no one was dancing! It felt really odd being on a dance floor and not have people dance except a few couples. Is there some Korean clubbing etiquette we weren’t aware of?! But that was short lived when we met some university students who were so nice to put us out of our awkward state. They taught us dance hand gestures for LMAO – Party Rock Anthem, and also told us that the armband we had lets us have free club entry to three clubs: NB1, NB2 and Harlem for the price of ₩11,000! That’s amaze-balls!! Less than $11 for three clubs?! I don’t even!
What clubbing looks like inside NB1. Though NB2’s crowd is more like this when we went. (tumblr)
A good couple of songs later and we were ready to hop somewhere else and under the offer of our new friends, they invited us to go to another club which was popular for foreigners with them. How nice! Accept we shall! If you ever felt shy whenever there was some really impressive dancer next to you and all you knew was the two-step and everyone was closed off to their own group, the thing I liked most about our foreign bar experience was that it didn’t feel ‘cliquey’. Everyone was just group dancing with cool random encounters and our circle just grew bigger with everyone shuffling. Horray! Oh and did I mention free shots of soju…twice…yeah your mind in blown right? But what we didn’t expect was when asked if we were feeling hungry we would stopped over at a famous street food stand for some late night tteokbokki and twigim. We didn’t get a chance to get our wallets before we left NB1 but they said it was ok and paid for us both! Double niceness! Can I tear up over how well we were being looked after?! They would be rivers I can assure you.
Since we went clubbing in Hongdae, which is a university district, we met people our age who were learning English so obviously they would be looking for friendships over hookups. Though it does depend on where you are as there will always be people who want to hook up in clubs, lucky we only encountered only one sleaze of a guy who was on a humping spree.
Anyways, enough of my bragging but have a facebook account ready as well. Though a lot of Korean people use Kakao, many prefer Facebook so keep that in mind when making friends overseas. Also you might find that your new friends would want to contact you while you are still in Korea to have dinner and show you around, unfortunately for us we left clubbing to the last week of our itinerary so we couldn’t make it as we had a lot of things to do before we left. But next time… kkkkk
Talyssa checking in – beware people, this post is gonna be a long one!!
Becauuuuuuuuuuuuuuse it’s about Hongdae!! I. absolutely. love. Hongdae. It’s so refreshing to be in a Hipster-esque place style wise, fashion wise and people wise, minus the arrogant, overly pretentious, clique-ish, self-entitled hipster attitude that unfortunately accompanies much of the hipster crowd in Sydney. Seriously. Sooo nice and refreshing.
I really wish Sydney had a similar place to Hongdae so I could at least describe to some extent how awesome Hongdae is…I guess Newtown might be the closest, but seriously, it doesn’t even compare. Actually scrap that. Newtown is nothing like Hongdae. Period.
We set out on our first venture to Hongdae to visit the Trick Eye Museum. Online there was absolutely no information on the Trick Eye Museum – nothing about how to get there or where it was located…so basically we took a giant stab.
Our giant stab lead us instead to a tourist information center (pink dotted path on map below). I really recommend coming here if you don’t know where to go or what to do. The customer service is amazing – they are extremely helpful and super friendly.
Not knowing where the Trick Eye Museum was, the staff provided us with maps and hand drew directions on them for us. On top of this, they gave us info on specials and Grand Korea sale cards so we could get as many discounts as possible during our trip!! How nice right!?!
Even with our amazing directions, the Trick Eye Museum wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to find…I’ll let you guess why:
It’s like completely hidden right?!?!!?!?!!? I was expecting like some separate building which was quite large with considerable signage since it is a tourist spot!!! We walked passed it once or twice – it was hard to see!!!
You do need to set aside a fair bit of time for the Trick Eye Museum – the museum itself is broken up into sections (we almost missed one section). On top of this, there are three galleries and a cat museum. We just did the museum and it took us approx 3-4hours?
You definitely want to come here at a time where people are usually at school or work…seriously…otherwise there are huge lines and a stack of couples left, right and center. If you don’t know it now, you will definitely find out when you go to Korea that Korean couple culture is INTENSE. There has never been a time in my life where I wanted to be more in love. I was like damn…I want a Korean man right now, they appear to treat their girlfriends so well!! *Filled with envy*
— End of sidetracked tangent —
So what exactly is the Trick Eye Museum? Basically it is an interactive museum revolving around a new concept that stimulates your creativity and imagination through the Trompe-l’oeil (eye tricking) technique through vision. To achieve this, the museum features a mixture of artworks and 3D installations you can interact with and take photos of, so you end up looking like a part of the picture.
A bonus – according to the brochure:
“…The trickeye artwork helps you learn aesthetic senses of form and also stimulates your creativity, which leads to the activation of your brain. Your logic and thinking abilities will enhance!”
LOL! Woahh okay I’m sure these paintings aren’t that miraculous! None the less, they are still awesome. Now onto the photos!
One of the different kinds of optical illusions at the museum. These were paintings on the floor which when looked at from a certain angle, looked 3D
Nothing better than a warm drink on a frosty Korean winter day..Siree’s part time job.This illusion was awesome!! Jokes, Siree is just a midget and I’m a giant.Love struck. My expression is good no? That’s what I call dedication.It’s not everyday you get to be up close and personal with a RhinoI love my sushi!!She was like this the whole trip. What a junkie!Nicki Minaj right there.Siree’s tactic for stealing the Museum’s food.Being posers in typical Korean style LOLSiree’s typical ‘pretending to be on the phone but really I’m just a poser’s’ pose
These are only some of the AMAZING interactive artworks – there are many many more cool ones as well. All in all, The Trick Eye Museum is a great experience, a lot of fun, good laughs and results in some pretty awesome photos that friends and family were highly amused by.
For more info on the Trick Eye Museum such as transportation and pricing, check out the bottom section of this post.
The rest of Hongdae is pretty amazing. It’s just a really nice place to go to just chillax with friends. There are super cute and relatively cheap fashion boutiques (the pinkage wig store is also here, but we were slightly disappointed with it!!), really cute cafes, awesome street food, epic clubs for amazingly great clubbing adventures, and just an overall really nice youth atmosphere – really safe, REALLY nice people, and no drunkard idiots – you can actually make real friendships.
The Hongdae Charm
Hongdae by day. I don’t know why, but I really like the look of streets like this…maybe because it looks quite foreign from what we’d find in Sydney.This is along one of the back streets of Hongdae where most of the clubs are. This street also connects to Hongik Uni. The shopfront you see in the picture named “Mama” is actually a club. This is what most of the clubs in Hongdae look like – they usually have a small black-painted entrance with the club’s name on it in large white text. Inside you usually go down a set of stairs to the clubbing area.Very naice. LOL. Opposite Condomania is NB1, where we had our awesome clubbing experience!!This believe it or not is a restaurant. How nice is it?!!? This is what I mean about Hongdae, its style is sooooo nice!!Pizza restaurant up close…completely diggin’ this styleAnother restaurant. Pretty~Cute, I love Hongdae!!I don’t know why, but Korea tends to have a thing for owning a shop pet (usually dogs). Cafe’s have them as well, we found it was fairly common. This one belonged to a cute accessory store in Hongdae.HOW NICE ARE THE CAFES!?!?! Seriously Sydney!! Get your act together!!hehehe Master Roshi!!Yup! Love Korean couple culture. So freaking cute.Hongdae at night. Look at these cute shops!! I wish we had something like this in Sydney. I love Korea’s concept of using really visual store fonts/windows, and the clothes are just too cute!Hongdae at night. I really love Hongdae at night – it comes alive!Hahahaha this photo says it all!! “Why am I here?!” “I hate my job”
Food
Look at that preparation. Look at that skill. As soon as we saw it, we had to try it.BEST. CHICKEN. EVARRRRR!That block right there is butter. Yup. Buttery Goodness.Although I’m not a huge fan of sweets, this was delicious – buttery, sweet and savoury all at once. YUMMMMOur dinner. This was delish!! Spicy seafood hot pot. We also ordered a kimchi pancake…but unfortunately that was not so good…FREE ICECREAM AT KARAOKE!! Seriously Korea’s service is AMAZING!!!! You never get that kind of treatment in Sydney. It is seriously all these small things that make Korea really stand out and your holiday much more enjoyable!
I LOVE HONGDAE!!!!!!!!! Soooo good!!
Map
Map of Hongdae
Transportation:
For the general area: Take subway Line #2 to Hongik University Station, exit #5.
For Tourist Centre: Take Exit #5 out of Hongik University Station and follow the pink dotted line on the map.
Trick Eye Museum: Take exit #9 out of Hongik University Station and follow the blue dotted line on the map.
Address: B2 Seogyo Plaza, Seogyodong 357-1, Mapogu, Seoul.
Pricing: 13,000won Adults, 11,000won Students.
Opening Hours: 10:00AM – 9:00PM
Website: www.trickeye.com
How long should I spend there?
There are sooooo many things to do in Hongdae that Siree and I came here on many different occassions. You definitely need a day to look around, but you will find you need to come back here to dedicate time for shopping, checking out some of the awesome places to eat and to visit places such as the Cat Cafe and Trick Eye Museum. This is also a great place to hang out with friends, so if you have Korean friends, you will find yourself hanging out here with them often, as Siree and I did.
When to come to Hongdae:
You should experience Hongdae both at day and at night. There is always something going on in Hongdae, expecially at night, so it is definitely worth checking out. For example one night we went to Hongdae, there was a HUGE outdoor silent disco going on. FREAKING. AMAZING.
Soooo I just had my birthday, and as I grow older I’ve been really keen on the idea of someday living by myself. Living with your rents has its benefits for emotional/support needs but up until recently I really do want my own place. To work. To live in an image of what I want to live in as an independent adult (hmmm… does that sound right?). And Pinterest DOES NOT help! All those gorgeous pictures of interiors ahhh makes me jealous!!
And with the ultimate home needs to be paired with an ideal surrounding. If you have ideas of living in a sweet zakka neighbourhood like me, Samcheongdong gives off that vibe of calm and space, which is pretty funny seeing as Korea is always so fast paced. Even walking! When we both came back we really felt the change just by walking down George Street in Sydney. The human traffic was so different it felt like a lazy Sunday walk in the park in the heart of the city compared to our rushed 1000 pace a second while in Seoul.
Walking through SamcheongdongRecognise this street? It’s the setting of a scene in Coffee Shop Prince. Over the walls are two girl middle/high schools buildings. I wouldn’t mind going to school here :)
On the opposite side of the very touristy Insadong, Samcheongdong is definitely quieter, fusing that picturesque small neighbourhood stroll with its many (many) cafes, contemporary art galleries and handmade jewelry stores. You can also find some handmade clothing and nick-knack shops as well as the Bukchon Hanok Village and Gyeongbokgung Palace but unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to visit. Definitely a great spot for couples who want some alone time and street walking real-estate ;)
One thing I noticed in Korean coffee cafes is the term “hand drip coffee.” Before Korea, I have never heard this expression being used as a marketing term for coffee consumption except “french press” (which is a different process). Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of espresso unless it’s affogato but I appreciate the art of a good smelling cupa :)
Unfortunately a lot of the jewelry stores have a “No Photography” sign so I had to take a lot of cafe fronts instead lol
Although Samcheongdong Sujebi is a must eat on tour itineraries for the area, Talyssa and I decided to try out this famous restaurant called Meokswidonna that’s popular for its tteokbokki. Ahh street food, what we do for your unhealthy empty carbs over healthy meals. Oh but this isn’t any ordinary tteokbokki. This has class it was even featured on television. Choose your favourite toppings and…. BAM!
Better than pizza any day!
Look how beautiful it is! Mmmm cheese and ramyun, and all for $8 per person!
I dare you to find a place that let’s you have seafood and beef for $16 of this size. I DARE YOUUUU!
Waaah cheese is in the same category as beef and seafood! I never really enjoyed American cheese (commercial Australian cheese is more natural being less processed in my view) but in this case, I will adjust :)
Walking down a bit further into the heart of Samcheongdong the scenery changes with distinctive slope-side shops with stone staircases to climb to the higher levels. Though mainly cafes, the look mixes the modern with traditional making it very charming to just walk and explore.
Oink!Guess who?
It’s a letterbox! How unique!
It became a ritual that after walking a bit, it was cafe time! So we stopped over at Palette Dessert Shop to grab some…
Macaroons!
So the verdict? Very nice! I guess if I was to compare it to a Lindt macaroon the ganache is more gooier, which I really enjoyed as you can really taste the flavour. I got the salted caramel of deliciousness.
Though Palette is known for macaroons, they had other cakes available as well.
Need a Map?
How to get there
To get to Samcheongdong take the Subway Line 3 and is 570m from Exit #1, Anguk Station.
Duration
Hmmm I would say 2-3 hours. Maybe longer if visiting the Bukchon Hanok Village and Gyeongbokgung Palace.
Tips:
Meokswidonna has a bit of a queue so line up early to get a seat. Though some of the wait staff knows a bit of English, the menu is completely in Korean and Japanese.
Samcheongdong has too many cute cafes to try on a full stomach.
Insadong is one of the most tourist-y places in Korea and is a great place to pick up souvenirs for friends and family. Unlike our Dongdaemun experience, I would like to say that Siree and I did Insadong well – exploring 80% of shops and only passing by shops which were not to our taste.
What I absolutely love about Insadong is its quirky kinda vibe blending traditional Korea with modern Korea, but at the same time still maintaining that “artsy craftsy” style that Korea does so well.
We arrived in Insadong around lunch time and instantly fell in love with this pretty looking traditional hanok restaurant called “Insadong Geujip,” located down the first side street on your left from the Insadong main street. Unfortunately we didn’t know anything about this restaurant prior to arrival so unfortunately…we didn’t order the best dishes…apparently recommended dishes for foreigners include “Insadong Seafood on Rice” or “Geukip On Rice”.
ooooohhh so pretty!Traditional indoor settingLOOK AT HOW CHEAP THIS MENU IS!!!! $6 bux for a freaking huge meal!!! You would never get that in Sydney. Ahh Korea how I love thee~
Siree and I, we needed to be exotic and order something that looked truly maginificent….
But unfortunately….our order was not so great…not that it wasn’t good, it just lacked as much flavour as we expected…probably because the food was traditional based.
Our really yummy side dishes!!
Our side dishes were super yummy! Especially the kimchi!! We ended up asking for 2 serves which we – extra sneakily – chucked into our hot pot meal to add more flavour ahahahaha! What foreigners we were at that moment.
Our meal :)
After our meal, we ventured off to what is the highlight of Insadong – Ssamziegil. I think Ssamziegil is amazingly cool because it’s just that little bit quirky and that little bit alternative. I can’t even describe what exactly this style is, but it is just so nice and seriously something that is in the essence of everything Korean. I just LOVE it!!
Ssamziegil is filled with amazing little accessory stalls/popup shops and boutiques and every time I leave Korea I wish I bought more things from here. They have some of the most quirky/cool accessories ever!!
Awesome map of Insadong!The shopsChristmas Decorations
On the ground floor of Ssamziegil there are the snack food.
Poo shape filled cakes…this stall was always SOO busy!! I didn’t try any though, I’m not really into sweets…
Traditional snack foods
I bought soo much of these rice snacks, and they are really yummy, my mum loved them. They are a mixture of rice puffs, grains, seeds, sultanas etc. but they are quite nice.
I absolutely loved this little cart stand…look how beautiful it is! It totally has its own charm and character!!! This little pop up stall sold all different kinds of tea drinks which helped you in different ways – emotionally or physically. I ended up buying a lemon honey one which was really delish.
Quirky shop fronts!
As you go up the levels of Ssamziegil there are mainly accessory stores selling jewellery, phone charms, little gadgets, tea sets, scarves and so on. Whilst there are some clothing stores, its not really the place you go to to buy clothing. None the less, things here are SUPER cool!! I swear all the quirky earrings KPOP stars wear in their videos are bought from Ssamziegil haha.
Cute accessory store. Look at the detailing with the product labels, its all so pretty
If you’re ever in need of chopstick holders…?
Inside Ssamziegil there is also a miniature museums with little figures that are so cute. Unfortunately the store is TINY and always super crowded!!
Miniature museum! Sorry about the poor picture quality – we were trying to take the photo in secret as no photos were allowed…
Another must – do experience in Insadong is to go to a rice cake cafe. We went to Jilrisu at around 5PM but I recommended going there a lot earlier than we did, because almost all rice cakes were sold out!!
Our order~ I got the pumpkin latte!! First time I tried a pumpkin latte was in Korea and they are AMAZING!!Siree’s orderHahahah check out the shopping bags in the background
Map
Map of Insadong
Transportation
As with most places in Korea, there are many ways to get to Insadong including different stations you can get off at etc, however I recommended getting off at Anguk Station (exit 6), one because it is such a short walk and two, because getting off at Anguk puts you at the beginning of the Insadong main street where as Jongno 3-ga station will drop you at the end.
How long should you spend here?
Siree and I spent 1 -1.5 days there, but really, one day I think is sufficient.
Time to go?
You definitely want to come to Insadong during a weekday (shops close around 6PMish). Weekends are usually crowded especially Ssamziegil.
Tips:
Eat as many foods as you can here because some things you cant find anywhere else in Korea. With almost all snack food places in Insadong ask to try – even if its tea or something, you can try it!
Don’t try bargaining here as souvenirs are already relatively cheap.
Make sure you shop around before buying something, many shops in Insadong sell the same things and different places can sell the same item for more or less.
Bonus Round!
Quirky AF! Check out the rooftop of Ssamziegil and you will find the Poop Cafe, a themed cafe restaurant for poop face emoji love.
If you do go definitely pick up a coffee as it comes in the most cutest toilet mug you will ever see. But before you think this place is too gimmicky for real taste, rest assured the coffee quality is no joke. The milk was creamy, the coffee taste was rich and the seasonal drink: rose water latte’s flavour had a nice floral scent that tasted quite nice with the bitterness of the espresso. Plus the addition of flower petals for that perfect Instagram shot to finish off, this place does gives a crap about their coffee!
Run by two travel and lifestyle bloggers, The Hidden Thimble focus’ on creating truthful and in-depth travel guides, food & beauty reviews. Enjoy drool-worthy photography from around the world!
