Long time no see this Local Guides Connect, I hope you all very healthy and always happy ?
February, 19th I will go to South Korea, and will stay near Myeong Dong for 5 days. I need your advice / suggestion about what to do, to eat, to visit, and must have things in Seoul. Not only that, but what souvenir I must bought later.
Or maybe you can suggest me about skincare store I must visit there ?
Local Guides Connect please do your magic ?
Call all the LG friends who is in Korea, and LG friends who has been there to give me some suggestion, thank youuuu
It’s so exciting that you are going to visit Seoul, an amazing city that has a lot of things to offer, from traditional style villages to modern suburbs and exciting venues you can visit. Off the top of my head here are my top picks:
I recommend visiting the Royal Palaces in Seoul - Gyeongboggung, Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung . They are located close to each other so the commute wouldn’t be bothersome. Also, nearby is the Bukchon Hanok Village, where you can look around an authentic traditional Korean Village and take amazing pictures.
There are a few places that give you amazing opportunities for a beautiful overlook of Seoul - Namsan tower, Lotte tower and Building 63. My personal favorite is Namsan tower, which has wonderful modern art installations around it and you can take a cable car on the way up to enjoy your trip even more.
There are few iconic market places - the more traditional Namdaemun Market and Dongdaemun Market where you can find souvenirs and shop traditional goods. Apart from that Insadong is a great place to look for more special handcrafted presents. Another great place for shopping is Myeongdong.
There are amazing pet cafes scattered around Seoul - cafes with raccoons, sheep, meerkats, and bunnies are few of the more interesting options but there are a lot of dog and cat cafes as well.
My final recommendations for places to visit are: Cheonggyecheon Stream - a great place to take a walk; Hongdae and Itaewon whic are hip neighborhoods with great nightlife. The trickeye museum is also a great place to visit but it has loads of visitors so going there early is advised.
For food, I would recommend trying kimbap, bibimbap, kimchi jeon, jjigae, bulgogi, and make sure you experience some Korean style barbecue.
There will be loads of cosmetic stores and back in the days when I lived there, I used to visit them quite often. My top picks have to be: Innisfree, Skin food, Missha and It’s skin - great for skin care products; Etude house, A’pieu, Too Cool for School - great for decorative cosmetics. There are probably many new ones that are currently trendy and good, but in any shop, you walk in you can get samples with anything that you buy so you can try on a lot of different things.
My comment became quite long, but if I missed anything let me know and I can try adding more information.
Have fun in Seoul and come back to tell us about it! :))
We were in South Korea last September. It’s a great city!
You absolutely have to climb/hike/take the bus to the top of Namsan mountain tot he N Seoul’s tower. Review
If you want an amazing meal that’s elevated but authentic Korean, you must eat at Le Yeon
If you want to have a little dress up fun, there are tons of places around (mostly northern area by the hanok village) to rent authentic hanboks you can wear for the day. Lots of people where them to the palaces and through Honok [village ](http://Bukchon Hanok Village 25-7 Jae-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea Google Maps)
[Gwangjang Market](http://Gwangjang Market 88 Changgyeonggung-ro, Jongno 4(sa)-ga, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea +82 2-2267-0291 Google Maps) has ALL the street food and is also where the Streetgood Korea lady on Netflix is found.
[Namdaemun Market](http://Namdaemun Market 21 Namdaemunsijang 4-gil, Hoehyeon-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea +82 2-753-2805 Google Maps) is great for shopping.
Good luck! I wish you all the best. It’s a great city!
South Korea is one of my favorite countries for travelling and seeing that you are planning your trip there makes me feel happy that I also got the chance to visit there. In 2015 I visited Seoul, Sokcho and the Seoraksan National Park, one of Korea’s 3 biggest national parks.
As for Seoul, I see that you’ve already received quite detailed and valuable tips on how to make your trip simply amazing! I would like to share with you a photo that I captured when I visited the N Seoul Tower.
The view that opens there, in my opinion, shouldn’t be missed and is one of the places I have brightest memory of Seoul.
As for the skincare cosmetics, I don’t use many of them, however I have bought Missha products and I simply loved their quality. There are many famous Korean brands, I guess you will like them.
Just as a reminder, don’t forget when responding to others make sure to tag them (by writing @ before their names) in a post so they can receive notifications that you are communicating with them.
If we want to meet at Seoul, I’m happy to meet you. (If you need my help, I think we can spend about 5 hours together in Incheon or Seoul.) Welcome to Korea again.And thank you for visiting Korea.
Thank you so much for the very complete explanation @LilyanaZ
I have plan to visit some of that place you mention, hope that I can visit all later. And also thank you for the recommendation of girl things there, I would like to visit the store. Your comment bit long but very helpful and can be my guide for visiting Seoul.
Such a great photo from the tower when sunset @TsekoV , and thanks a million about sharing the information about Seoul.
But, unfortunately, I’m not going to Sokcho and Seoraksan National Park, I just stay in Seoul near Myeongdong for 5 days . Hope you can visit Seoul again
Hello @KellyHyojeongKim thank you so much for the kind respond
I’ll be in Seoul in 19-22 Feb 2020 soon, if we can meet, I’ll stay near Namdaemun and Myeongdong
@dinitelmo Nanta is not really a cooking show (but they do use food and stuff as props) and it more of like a music related show where they make noise using pots and pans and other cooking tools. It was quite popular some number of years ago but not sure how popular it is now.
. Hope you can visit Seoul again 