South Korea: Seoul itinerary part 1
I lowkey dread writing these travel recaps because we went to so many places and did so many things and sometimes it’s hard to remember everything and write it down, and also it makes me sad that I am no longer on vacation.
This October, my fiancé and I traveled to South Korea for 2 weeks! It was my first time visiting South Korea, despite many of my friends’ surprises (I am kinda a koreaboo). I had a lot of things I wanted to do and see and I do feel like we accomplished most, if not all, of my list so I am pretty satisfied with that.
This post will go over our first few days of our South Korea trip, starting off with the capital city of South Korea – Seoul!
South Korea trip 2023 recap
Seoul – part 1 | Seoul – part 2 | Jeju Island | Busan | Paradise City
Day 1: Arrival to Seoul
Direct flight to ICN
We flew direct with Air Canada to Seoul’s Incheon Airport. Our flight left on a Thursday at 1pm and we arrived the next day on Friday at around 5-6pm with a 1 hour delay. The flight itself was pretty average, with the food being acceptable (they had Korean options like spicy bulgogi stirfry) and us playing mahjong for 2 hours 😅.
We had some difficulties falling asleep but I think we are just getting to that age where anything over 10 hours on economy is going to be difficult anyways 💀, so the direct flight was manageable since it is around 9-10 hours one way.
We booked through our friend’s Korean travel agency and paid around $1,500 CAD per person for our roundtrip flights.
We travelled to South Korea during the Canada Thanksgiving and Reconciliation Day long weekend to take advantage of my 2 stat holidays, but it was also Chuseok in Korea, which is like their version of Thanksgiving. Chuseok is actually one of the longest holidays in South Korea and people get almost 1 week off, so it was very busy during this time. Our flight was full and also the airport was so busy when we arrived. It took us at least 45 minutes to pass through immigration and get our luggage.
Simcard and T-money card
You can order an e-sim online but we didn’t do that so we lined up to purchase a simcard at one of the booths at the airport. They sell simcard packages in different bundles of days and unfortunately, they didn’t have one that was around 14-15 days, they only had 10 or 20 days so we had to purchase the 20 day one.
The physical sim card comes with a physical T-money card, which is what you will use for transit. It similar to the Compass card here in Vancouver where you can load it up with money and use it to pay for fares when riding the bus or skytrain.
Our 20 day simcard is unlimited data + a Tmoney card and it costed us around $50-60 CAD.
Leaving Incheon Airport
You can leave the airport in a variety of ways – taxi, Uber, transit, etc. We were slightly confused when looking at the airport railway options – one was non-stop to Seoul Station, and the other had multiple stops. We opted for the multiple stop one since our destination was Hongdae, and it only costed around $5 CAD per person. It was like a special skytrain that connects from the airport terminals to city station stops. Our commute took around 45 minutes to reach Hongdae station.
Accommodations: Nine Brick Boutique Hotel
We stayed in Seoul for 5 days and 4 nights and we stayed in the same hotel the entire time. This is because we didn’t want to check in/out and move our luggage or repack every few days. And since we were staying in the same place for 4 nights, we also decided to choose our accommodations based on location and room size – we wanted a nice room with lots of space.
In the end, we booked with Nine Brick Boutique Hotel, located in Hongdae, a fun and youthful area that has a nightlife culture and lots of shopping. Nightly rate for our room was around $215 CAD per night so in total, we spent around $1,074 for 4 nights.
You can definitely find cheaper accommodations in Seoul (can be as low as $80 a night), but we don’t regret going with Nine Brick Hotel. I find that we don’t mind spending a bit more on accommodations as long as it’s nicer since we want to be able to relax in our rooms after a long day. We’ve also had experiences where one of us have gotten sick, and so now we do value nicer accommodations than before. We usually prefer rooms that have a larger bed (king if possible), and more space for us to open our luggage.
Nine Brick Boutique Hotel had a really awesome location. The closest train station was around an 8 minute walk at most, and we are just 10 mins walking to the popular shopping and bar streets in Hongdae.
Bathroom was really big and had a bidet (🤩) but we weren’t big fans of the open shower since the floor would get all wet and slippery and I wish the sink had more counter space for all my cosmetics. Loved the big tub though! They also provided washroom toiletries like toothbrushes, shower caps, combs, etc.
Service was excellent and they spoke really great English.
Late night dinner: Hongdae Dawn
We roamed around the restaurant/bar streets of Hongdae for awhile, trying to decide on where to eat. It was a Friday night at around 8-9pm and many places had lineups outside.
Since we just came from a long flight and we also just showered after checking in to our hotel, we avoided all the Korean bbq places. In the end, we lined up for Hongdae Dawn, which had a cool exterior of a wooden bar aesthetic and the line was a little bit shorter than some of the other places.
Hongdae Dawn is what I would consider a “pocha” or “izakaya” type of restaurant. They have a pretty big selection for alcoholic beverages, and most of the food menu items are supposed to pair with alcohol.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommended: Read my full review of Hongdae Dawn, a Korean bar in Hongdae where we had our first meal in South Korea.
Archery and gun range
After dinner, we wanted to do something fun, and we found an archery and gun range place along one of the streets. We chose to do the silver package, which is ~ $11 CAD per person and comes with archery ($14 shots) + pistol (24 shots) and rifle (30 shots).
The archery was kind of challenging for me because the bow and arrow was actually much heavier than I thought it would be and I have jelly arms. However, I redeemed myself at the gun range because I beat my fiancé and my friend in both pistol and rifle (y’all watch out 😈).
Explore Hongdae street
After the archery and gun shooting, we decided to head back to the hotel and rest up for the next day. Along the way back to our hotel, it was still really interesting and fun to just see Hongdae Street at night. I was surprised that many stores were still open for people to shop and it was after 10pm.
There were also lots of street food vendors and busking performances with people dancing and performing music.
Day 2: Gyeongbokgung Palace + Bukchon Hanok Village + Itaewon
Day 2 in Seoul is a Saturday and it is jam packed. Even trying to remember this day is making me exhausted. Luckily, we didn’t really have any jetlag and were able to cross off some very touristy things on my to-do list!
Brunch at Urban Plant cafe
We started the morning off trying to find a cute café to go to. Most restaurants don’t actually open until 10 or 11am, and so there were more limited options for breakfast. After some research on Kakao Maps, we ended up going to Urban Plant, a plant cafe.
Surprise – the café is filled with plants. It’s like a green room in there actually. It made me feel like I was somewhere warm and tropical even though the morning started off cloudy with a little bit of drizzle.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommended: Read my full review of Urban Plant, a plant cafe in Mapo-gu that serves up giant omelets.
Shopping in Hongdae
After brunch, we did a little bit of shopping in Hongdae. Some of the stores we checked out:
- M Playground – multi-floor clothing for men and women. Prices were very reasonable (ex. $30 CAD for pants). I would compare it to something like Stitches or Urban Planet. There are changerooms.
- Kakao – lots of cute items featuring the Kakao characters
- Absolute Awesome – unisex clothing
- Floor to wall accessory stores – I don’t want to list any specific names because I saw tons of accessory stores that look almost identical with different names. They have floor to wall selections of earrings, necklaces, hair clips, etc.
- Dog clothing stand – we bought Tofu some clothes!
It also started to rain actually, so we had to wait for the rain to die out a little bit in one of the stores.
Gyeongbokgung Palace + hanbok rental
Well, tourist location spot #1 – Gyeongbokgung Palace. Built in 1395, it was the main royal palace of the Joseon dynasty. Even though I am not particularly interested in historical sights, I still believed we should go visit the palace. Again, it is chuseok so actually it was hella busy. Usually, there is an entrance fee to go into the palace (maybe $5-10), but if you enter wearing a hanbok (traditional Korean clothing) rental, you can enter for free. However, for chuseok, they removed the entrance fee for all so it was very crowded.
That didn’t stop us from renting hanboks though because I am a basic bitch so I made my fiancé and our friend rent hanboks to take photos inside the palace.
The main entrance to the palace is under repair actually, so to enter we had to go through one of the side entrances. Near the side entrances, there are a lot of hanbok rental stores. We just went into the first one we saw because we were short on time and the palace closes at 5pm.
Rentals last around 2 hours and cost around $20 for guys and $25 for women. Let me tell you it was a real shit show in there 😂. I frantically chose a dress and had to track down a worker to help me get dressed. They also do your hair for you and you can also rent a little purse to carry all your stuff (you also get a locker). All in all, they are very efficient and I was ready to go within 10 minutes but it took a long time to find someone available to help me get dressed.
After that, we finally entered the palace and walked around. To be frank, we really didn’t learn much about anything here because all the plagues were written in Korean and we weren’t part of a tour group or anything. So we didn’t learn about the history, or even what each room/building was built for. We just walked around taking photos 😂.
Bukchon Hanok Village
Bukchon Hanok Village is a residential neighborhood that has many restored traditional Korean houses, called hanok. You are basically just walking through small streets and it’s more of a photo spot (nothing else much to do here or see except for the architecture).
I researched that Bukchon Hanok Village is close to the palace (around a 15 minute walk), so we decided to exit the palace and walk towards it. It ended up being a pretty terrible walk because there’s a lot of uphill, it was very crowded, and we were sweating in our traditional outfits. Given this insight now, I recommend you to maybe find a shop that is in between/close to the Bukchon Hanok Village and the palace if you want to hit both locations.
Hongdae street food
Our original plan was to go to Gwangjang Market but we realized belatedly it closes at 6pm. Instead, we headed back to our hotel in Hongdae to rest before preparing for our night out (Saturday night! Gotta party).
However, we hadn’t eaten anything since our brunch from this morning, so on our way back to our hotel we stopped by some food stall vendors in Hongdae shopping street. We tried the egg bread for around $2 and the tanghulu for $4, which is like a fruit skewer coated in icing.
Pocha in Itaewon at Seolbam
One of the top things I wanted to do in South Korea was drink and party in Itaewon, a busy nightlife area known for catering to foreigners.
Kelvin and I were also big fans of the Korean drama Itaewon Class, which is all about a guy who opens his own bar business in Itaewon. We actually ended up finding the real building/bar the drama was filmed in and we had a late dinner and first round of drinks there.
The real bar that is now at that location is called Seoulbam and they definitely bank off of the marketing and popularity of the drama as they have a similar menu as to what was shown in the drama, and they had screenshots and signs of the drama outside.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommended: Read my full review of Seoulbam, a Korean pocha inspired by the popular Korean drama Itaewon Class.
Clubbing in Itaewon
After our pocha in Itaewon, we explored the busy clubbing street of Itaewon. It was very busy on a Saturday night and there were quite a few “foreigners” there, but since I am from Vancouver and Vancouver is quite multi-cultural, really it just felt like a more busy and exciting night out on Granville Street to me.
There were club promoters outside handing out drink coupons, and some clubs you will need to pay cover to enter (~$10).
The two places we went to were:
- Thursday Party: really fun dirty pub kind of vibe. They have beer pong and darts.
- Prost Pub & Grill: this was the main club we stayed at. It had no cover and we made lots of friends! Super fun and they had a promotion for 6 tequila shots.
Getting a cab home was a little difficult because lots of people were trying to go home at around 4am. The taxi drivers also started bargaining with us vs. usually they would just take whatever customer they can get.
Day 3: Fish market + Han River + Hungover
Day 3 in Seoul was a weird day because we were immensely hungover after our night out in Itaewon. I don’t think we lied down in bed until at least 5am. But hey we are on vacation so gotta get up and do stuff even though we feel terrible.
육전국밥
We wake up in the morning hungover and wishing we had some soup. Our friend recommended this restaurant to us that was close by to our hotel – they specialize in Seolleongtang (ox bone soup).
It was pretty easy to order because they have individual machines at each table and you can select English as your language. We order 1 ox bone soup and 1 cold noodle soup for around $15 each.
I personally find ox bone soup a little bland but for a hangover, it was great and settled my stomach. The cold noodles weren’t as good and the broth for it didn’t have much flavour.
Noryangjin Fish Market
The Noryangjin Fish Market is the biggest fish market in Seoul where you can choose your seafood and they prepare it fresh for you right away.
Here we tried Korea sashimi, hoe, for the first time and also ate some raw octopus (it was still moving while we ate it)! I highly recommend you to visit a fish market during your trip to South Korea but it will be less intimidating if you can go with someone who speaks Korean as you will need to discuss what you want and prices with the sellers.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommended: Read my review of the Noryangjin Fish Market in Seoul.
Snacks + Han river
It is actually a beautiful day so we decide to go for a walk at Han River – the place is huge!
We walked around for maybe 1-2 hours and honestly it was so beautiful and refreshing. There was a nice small breeze, sunshine, and so many people with their dogs out. We saw a lot of places where you can rent tents, mats, chairs and tables for you to relax at different parts of the park. There were people riding bicycles, jogging, etc. It was just really wholesome and fun.
We stopped by a convenience store to buy some snacks and we were also very tempted to get some ramen but we were already pretty full from the fish market. There are also areas with street food stalls where you can buy food as well.
Lastly, there was a section with fountains and a water park area for children.
Highly recommend you spend some time at the Han River! Gorgeous!
Shopping at The Hyundai mall
We crossed a few roads to visit a luxury mall called The Hyundai that was close to Han River. This mall is pretty fancy and had luxury brands too. You can get your tax refund on the top floor through a machine.
We browsed around a bit and maybe made 1-2 purchases, but during this time we felt the energy drain from us because we were still hungover, going on maybe 4 hours of sleep and also we were tired from walking around the Han River. So in the end, we took a taxi back to our hotel and took a nap.
Pizza Never Sleeps
After we woke up from our nap, we were feeling a little disoriented (as one does after you wake up from a nap). We realized we still needed to eat dinner and we sought out a nearby Korean pizza spot called Pizza Never Sleeps.
Well, long story short I don’t think I am a fan of Korean pizza. We went to one that had good reviews (4 stars) but I still didn’t really like it and I actually feel like it was a bit of an abomination 😅.
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️
Recommended: Read my review of Pizza Never Sleeps, a Korean pizza restaurant in the Mapo-gu area.
Final thoughts
My first few days in Seoul were so busy!
On day 2 we walked 30,000 steps while visiting the palace and partying in Itaewon. I really like that we got some of the super touristy activities out of the way and I also prefer to do really touristy things in the beginning of the trip when I am super excited to see things and do things, vs. near the end of the trip when I am tired and all my clothes are dirty 🥲.
I am really glad we didn’t have jetlag or anything like that because arriving to Seoul on a weekend meant we had to be ready to party right away and when you are 30 sometimes you just can’t muster up that energy to do it 💀.
Food-wise, we’ve been mostly eating Korean food but none of the places we went to so far have been amazing. The fish market was probably the best but again, super intimidating to go without someone who speaks Korean. I also feel like if I wasn’t so hungover, it raw fish would’ve tasted better to me.
Shopping-wise, amazing! We already bought some stuff and every store has really cool interior and decorations. There is no tax and I find prices in general are cheaper than Vancouver.
Stay tuned for the next part of my South Korea trip recaps!
Sincerely, Loewe
South Korea trip 2023 recap
Seoul – part 1 | Seoul – part 2 | Jeju Island | Busan | Paradise City
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