My sister and I started watching Korean drama last year, and I swear nothing good would come out of watching too much of those dramas. For instance, I started eating a lot more of noodles, kimchi, and rice cakes. Like, a lot more.
Anyone noticed how in the dramas, there are always noodles? Perhaps that’s just me.
But we ended up booking tickets to fly to Seoul this summer and spend a week there. We got friends in Seoul, and we saw the old museums already last time we visited, so we thought this time we would just shop and eat good food.
And of course, search for filming locations if we could.
Unfortunately, we forgot one thing: Seoul was ridiculously hot in summer. Like burning hot and humid kind of hot. I understood how roasted chicken felt like the moment I got there.
However, we had great time with our friends, and we bought a lot of crap home too (oops), so the whole trip was good.
Here’s a list of places/things I remember from the trip that I suggest you all go for if you’re thinking of visiting the city:
- Tesseum Teddy Bear Museum, just because it’s a teddy bear museum. I mean, it can’t get any better than that. You just have to.
- Hanboknam. Why? Well, here’s a funny story: so my sister really wanted to go to Hanboknam to try on the hanbok. There were two Hanboknam on the map, and because they were deep in the village, we couldn’t find even one of them for hours. Then, after a short visit to the tourism booth, we got the right direction to get there; but we went to the wrong Hanboknam (because there were two of them, hah!), so after they told us they were closed, I dragged my sister to the other Hanboknam on the map. We got in there and tried on our hanbok; but there was language barrier so they misunderstood us when we said we wanted to pay for the hourly rent to take photos with the hanbok outside. So instead of making us pay for the hourly rent, the ladies who worked there let us borrow the hanbok for 15 minutes free of charge. Bam! We didn’t have to pay anything. But we had to rush taking pictures in hanbok. I never felt more disgusting, violating some beautiful dress that day. I was a despicable human being.
- Grevin Museum. If I’m not mistaken, this was the only one in Korea, and we went there because there was a Lee Min Ho wax figure inside. My sister had never been happier. She literally ignored most of the dudes I took pictures with (Messi, Picasso, Da Vinci, etc) and went straight for her dream man Lee Min Ho.
- Alive Museum. You can find this type of museum anywhere, to be honest. It was just really fun to go in and take photos though.
- Insadong. They got a lot of mini museums to visit, if you’re into that, and expensive merchandises. Phew. I did not buy anything other than ice cream and my dinner when I was there. Oh wait, I got myself a patbingsoo. But that was pure happiness.
- Myeongdong. This is where your money goes puff into thin air. You can’t even feel your wallet thinning anymore because it goes down so fast. People grab you to go into their stores, throw free samples onto your faces, and make you try a lot of cream and stuff and you either end up confused in the stores or leaving with a lot of bags.
- Twosome Place. I figured it was like Starbucks, because I saw Twosome literally everywhere I went. Their coffee and tiramisu were pretty good though. I’d definitely come back for more.
- IF you’re into Kpop and Kdrama, then go to MBC World and SMTown. I was super confused when I visited those places, but then I realized that those were a lot of people’s dream photoshoot locations.
- Namsan Tower. Couples rejoice. This is your place. There’re Hello Kitty island, figurine museum, arcade, stationary store, restaurants, bars, Starbucks, a giant Pikachu, etc there. You can find whatever you need at Namsan Tower, but it was such a pain getting up there, especially in a crammed bus full of couples exploring each other’s butts.
- Hangang River. I didn’t take pictures there because I went with my best guy friend and it just felt way too romantic with all the couples walking around. I mean, you know. But it was really awesome. A lot of people were sitting around, drinking beer and talking, like this city never sleeps.
- Subway System. BADASS. The system is it. We didn’t have to take cabs or buses (well, we took buses sometimes… cabs too) because the subway system is super efficient.
- Trick Eye Museum. I mean, you just got to take fun pictures sometimes.
- Kakao Talk or Line Stores. These are literally the best places to go to.
We did a lot more than this and went to tons of places for sure, but I would be writing a book if I had to talk about them here.
If anyone is going to Seoul and wants to hear my opinion on the places to visit, how much money you should bring, or where to stay, feel free to contact me and we can talk about this!
OpinionHuis 