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:

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!












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














Food






I LOVE HONGDAE!!!!!!!!! Soooo good!!
Map

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.
This blog is so inspiring, I absolutely loved it
Thank you! Glad you found it inspiring!!