Paula Barnes (00:15.18)
What does it look like when a city fully reinvents itself without forgetting where it came from? The answer is Seoul. Welcome to Truly Expat Travel. And I am your host Paula and today I'm on my own. I'm on my own and I am here to talk to you about my recent trip to Seoul. Normally I have some questions to answer or you know, I'm fully scripted out but I...

To be honest, haven't been feeling very well. So I'm just going to tell you about my last trip, which I recently went on to South Korea. We did a big trip. We went from Seoul to Busan to Jeju Island, but I'm actually just going to talk to you today about Seoul because there's so much to uncover.

There is so much to get through in this episode and here I am going to tell you how pleasantly surprised I have been about Seoul and my recent trip. Let's put it into perspective. So about 15 years ago, I lived in Seoul and it was not the easiest place to visit or to travel to or to live to be honest. And the reasons being, no, people aren't going to like me saying this that

The reasons being one, was the language, was no English. So if you didn't know Korean, it was actually really hard to get around. And 15 years ago, you didn't have smartphones with AI functions and Google Translate. So you really had to know the language or at least understand a little bit of it to kind of get around and to be able to read some of the signs. But that's changed, obviously. So that

one aspect has made it a little bit easier and a lot more people speak English which really surprised me. That's number one. Number two it was the weather. The weather for me was a bit of a struggle so living there I guess is a little bit different to visiting and I did go in winter but you know what I actually really had a great time. I think wearing the right clothes and doing the right things there was no it wasn't snowing so it wasn't that cold but it was still in its one digits which

Paula Barnes (02:26.946)
for me is pretty cold seeing that I live in Singapore and we don't really have those double digits. Sorry, those one digits. excuse me for a second. Okay.

So it was pretty cold, but it wasn't that cold. It was one digits, like it was single digits. So it, it, it wasn't as cold as it would be if it was snowing. So for me, I was actually pleasantly surprised that I could get around. We did a lot of stuff outside, yet it was cool. Like it was, it was easy. We just put jackets on and away we went. Second thing is, or the third thing is there was Uber. So we didn't have Ubers back then. It was just taxis. And a lot of the time, if you didn't speak,

Korean they kicked you out of the taxi and you kind of were stranded. I did have a car back then so that did make that a bit easier but GPS's were all in Korean so life was a little bit more complicated I guess getting around. This time around you have Ubers, have Google Translate. The weather I mean is what it is but the other thing is that this might be a bit controversial but people were not friendly. It was really hard.

You know, you go to places and people were not friendly. Not everyone. There was restaurants that we used to go to all the time that were lovely. you know, taxi drivers, you know, I was physically pushed out of a taxi in near Namdaemun markets because I couldn't speak Korean and he couldn't understand what I was trying to say, which was the address of my home. But yeah, it was really difficult time. But now people are friendly. So many more tourists.

Before there wasn't many tourists. Now you go in places like Maandong and everyone it looks like they're a tourist. So there's, and there's a lot more reasons to go there as well. It's not just the cultural heritage which was always something that I thought was amazing, but it was also this time around you've got a lot of K-pop and you've got K-drama and you have skincare and you have so much more shopping malls and you've got Gangnam and

Paula Barnes (04:36.471)
Gangnam and you've got all these other things that are really popular now for tourists to venture to Seoul. So can I say I could live there in heartbeat strangely enough I can't believe this is coming out my mouth but I could live there in heartbeat. In fact I'm gonna go back again because it was so good I really really enjoyed myself. Let's get started in explaining why I loved it. So there's some of the I guess things why I didn't like it but now

So what we did was we spent a few days before the tour started and in those days we decided that we would go to the DMZ which I hadn't ever been before because the kids were too little and I was living there before. It's a must if you're going to go to Korea especially go to Seoul to learn about the war history is quite important because it's a big part of their kind of history and world history really and so

DMZ is a really big... Okay, some of the tours might be tacky, but this one that we went to was quite respectful and I'll put that in the show notes because the tour guide was lovely. know, she answered all the questions that anyone had. We went and had lunch, then we went to the DMZ. We went to the tunnels. One of the tunnels was closed, so we went to the other tunnel to see the tunnel to North Korea. We also...

went to the main viewing point where you cannot take photos but you can view North Korea and then there is the and then on the way back we went to the suspension bridge we found out as you know to be fair like lately I don't know why but I've been doing a lot of tours to do with war and to be honest I don't know much about war and I didn't realize how much I didn't know about war until I started

really going along and visiting these places. So yeah I learned a lot about the North and the South history, the war history and where they're at now and what's going on and I found that very interesting. We also decided that we would get a lot of the shopping out of the way we thought until we traveled around and did more shopping but we went to Miendong because the tour stops in Miendong. We then went to the Nantar.

Paula Barnes (06:58.865)
show which I think is one of those iconic things that you have to do when you're in South Korea especially in Seoul. I used to take all my guests there when I lived there before. still going and you don't need to understand Korean to be able to go to the show. It's actually quite a fun show to go to. It's funny and it's quite talented. So I enjoyed that. We went shopping in Myeongdong. There's a lot of street vendors like

food vendors there, we tried a lot of food, like street food, which was great. Then we did a lot of kind of little boutique shopping, lots of Olive Young skincare, so we went into Olive Young, I'm gonna explain, Olive Young is like a Sephora, I guess, of Korea, and it is full of skincare products, and it's on almost every corner.

but there is a massive one in Myeongdong. There's a couple there, but there's one big three floor one. So before you go, if you've skin products are your thing, then you should probably have a look online and see what you want to get before you get there. Cause most people go to somewhere like Olive Young, but then you can go to the specific, especially in Myeongdong, the specific places, specific, sorry, the specific skincare company shops.

that are also there which aren't in many other places. The other thing is chemists, quite a few chemists sell really good products as well so that's also an option. There's quite a few places there for beauty treatments so that is a must. Then Miendong is also a great place for shopping like as in clothes shopping and other type of boutiques and it's quite lively at night, there's lots to do.

So that's a must. We stayed not far from there in Namdaemun. Well I would have said it was Namdaemun which is I think is a very great place to stay because you're quite central to the palace which is something you have to do and especially the changing of the guards. But it's also close to the gate. I'm not sure which is east, north, west. I'm not great with directions. So it's one of the gates to the city.

Paula Barnes (09:22.037)
You also have the Namdeung Market which you must do. It's a must. It's the oldest market there in Seoul and it's got everything. When I say everything you've got street food, lots and lots of street food and can I say, let me see if I can pronounce this properly and it was the first time I've tried it but it is a Hoteok? I don't even know if I'm saying it right. It's H-O-T-T-E-O-K. first time I tried it and it's everywhere there and it's quite famous there.

It's like a pancake that's got this hot honey inside it. It's delicious. I didn't think I'd like it but I actually did. So it's something that you definitely have to try. There's also street food in Namdaemun that you can try as well but also it has loads of stuff. It's got little restaurants there, street food vendors, you've also got jewelry, massive amounts of jewelry, clothes, bags, socks. It's got lots of

pottery, it's got lots of souvenirs, everything that you think is in a market, times that by five, that's an amptimate market and it's a must, it's quite iconic.

Paula Barnes (10:42.109)
so I would also,

Paula Barnes (10:48.479)
Okay so we stayed at what used to be the in Namdaemun but it's then changed its address to Myeongdong. So it's walking distance so where we stayed in the courtyard Marriott is really cool. It had you know what it did have like I digress for a second but it had these little robots so if you ordered you know tea or coffee or anything

they literally sent up a robot to deliver it to you, which is quite cute. And it's very Korean. So that, and that is a really good place. So it's right across the road from the M-dong markets. It's right next to the train station. It's about a 10, 15 minute walk to Myeongdong station main area. It is central to other areas. Like I said, the palace, then, you know,

you've got the temple a little bit further up the road. and it's Itaewon is about 15 minutes away. Isadong is probably about 15 minutes away. So it's a real central area. So I highly recommend staying that area. It doesn't have to be that hotel, but that area. The other things I would suggest that you do is that you have to go to Bukchon Hanok Village. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but it is

a very traditional like houses. You can stay there as well which is very interesting like you've got home stays and if you like it's got a Hanuk, Hanuk, sorry I can't speak today. Hanuk kind of Hanuk stay. Take that bit out. So you can also stay there. There is a few accommodation to stay there but

there are rules in place. it is a residential area. I would go early in the morning before a thousand people get there and it has a beautiful feel to it. it's, well, they ask you to be quiet, but people are disrespectful, you know, and they're not. But if you go walk around there in the morning, apparently sunrise is a beautiful time to walk around there. didn't, we didn't get a chance to walk around there sunrise, but it would have been really nice to not have so many people around. So early morning.

Paula Barnes (13:08.937)
early morning is a better option and it's not that far from anywhere so you know that is definitely somewhere what I would highly recommend. I also you know as I said Mian Dong, Nambudan markets, now Gangnam like I know that it's quite you know I know everyone knows Gangnam now but Gangnam is quite

you doing that?

Paula Barnes (13:36.344)
I go to Gangnam, I would do a day over there because you have Hongdae which is a really great shopping area. It's kind of like a young vibe at night. It lights up and there's lots of bars and things. But you also in Gangnam you have a really good, it's huge actually, shopping mall with a very, very nice library. It's quite Instagramable I guess.

The shopping mall itself has got so much stuff in there and that area is quite high end. So if you're looking for brands, that's the place to look for them. You also have this massive statue of the Gangnam hands from the song, which is something you have to take a photo of. You just have to do that, The other place I would suggest you go is Itaewon.

So Itaewon is very much a lots of bars and restaurants, but it's changed so much. It used to be a place where like a residential place that all like loads of expats live, but now it's got beautiful boutique stores and it's got lots of hot, not just high end, but you know, original kind of shops there. It's got great restaurants. We went to...

We went to Vatos, is one of my favorites. It's if you don't want Korean food, it's one of my favorites. So it's a fusion Mexican and Korean.

Sorry, I don't know what's going on with my light here. Where it's looking like I'm, it's like I'm going to a disco. I know you can't see that because you're, you haven't got, you're only listen, if you're only listening to this, but I know my light is deciding that it's flicking on and off. Let's get stuck back into talking about Itaewon. Itaewon used to be a very big residential area, but now, like I said, it's got lots of boutiques and

Paula Barnes (15:38.879)
It's not that far from some of...

Paula Barnes (15:53.486)
turn it off. It's going to, you know what, I'm going to just sit there and put the light on.

Paula Barnes (16:16.513)
itaewon. So you can also go to the the art museum there which has got quite a big selection of antiques. That's quite cool. Then I would also suggest to try as much Korean food as possible. I mean

not just Korean barbecue everyone knows Korean barbecue and I love Korean barbecue but try the pancakes and the the hot the tofu soup and the street food there is so much that and their version of like the sushi rolls there's so much Korean food to try that I just and it's super healthy you know like kimchi will be on every plate but kimchi is really good for your gut so

I would give it a go. There's so much to try. I'd also go to the seafood market because in the seafood market you can pick your seafood and then they will cook it in the restaurants. That is definitely worth trying. There is also, there's some beautiful walking paths around Seoul. There's some

some rivers that you can walk through. There's beautiful places in better weather that you can go and picnic but we obviously didn't get a chance to do that because we were quite limited. We only had a few days. I felt like we could have done so much more. We really could have done so much more but because it was a tour and then we had to go off to Busan we didn't really get a chance to do as much as that we wanted to do. I would say

If you go and you go with a suitcase that's pretty much empty because it was so much more affordable. Everything was so much cheaper, especially like products like skin products, golf gear. Golf gear was so cheap compared to, you know, places outside of Korea. We also stayed in Gimpo at the airport, near the airport, and there's this massive factory, premium factory outlet.

Paula Barnes (18:34.913)
that was amazing, like it was amazing. And although it's like Gimpo is so far away, you know what? That was a lovely surprise to be able to stay near the airport and find this massive big factory out there. We also went and did, you know, I don't know if you know this about Korea, but you can do temple stays. So we went to the temple and then across the road from there is the

temple stay information center and they've got a lot of free things that you can do. You can do the day we were there, you could speak to a monk or I don't know, it's just a conversation with a monk. I don't know what that entailed and I don't know if the monk speaks English so I'm not sure there but you could, we were also doing some sort of like stamps that was on like the, you know, like the rice paper that they have.

which was beautiful. then did, we also did a cooking class. We did a bibimbap cooking class, which was really, really good. I will put all of these in the show notes because I think all these places that we went to are really definitely places that I would recommend. We also went to one of these traditional Korean restaurants where you had this feast of food. Apparently they only do that on special occasions. So there's one,

in Myeongdong called the traditional Korean restaurant but I will put that in the show notes because that is definitely something very unique because even in the inside it was very Korean. It was really lovely actually really really lovely. If you're going down the alcohol route I would suggest trying at least a little bit of soju even though it's not my thing. Beer is big there. Wine and stuff I guess you can get in restaurants but they're mainly the things that people

drink when they're out. Karaoke is big there so screen golf is big there. There's so much to do in Seoul and you know what I love even though it's cold this everybody's around there's so much to do and even at night you know. I think for me next time I'd go in cherry blossom season because that is beautiful I do remember that and autumn.

Paula Barnes (20:59.762)
Autumn for me or fall or wherever you're from for fall in Korea was pretty, you know, you go and do all those. used live in Samwookdong. So all around those that areas, beautiful walking paths and the the it's the only place in Asia that we've lived that are four true seasons. I know I lived in Japan and you've got four seasons there, but I just felt like in Korea it was four true seasons where you had snow in winter and fall was beautiful.

The trees were like yellow and orange and red so it just lit up the park so beautifully. So I would highly recommend trying different seasons. There's so much to do. Although I would say that even in winter it's cold but it's cheap. It's affordable. We were there when BTS, just before BTS arrived.

so it was crowded, it was really busy. The streets were super super busy and I don't know if that's like that all the time or whether or not it's just because BTS was there. That is kind of me, that's it. I think I've kind of gone on and on about it for enough now and I have written a few guides and I've put them on my website. So I've done an itinerary, a five day itinerary.

I've also done where to stay, the areas to stay, and I've also done what is a...

Paula Barnes (22:36.212)
I've also done a where to stay like a hotel guide. I've done a what to do best things to do. So I've named a few of them on this episode, but I've also talked about other things to do. There is also I've got done if you're interested in Korean general, I've done a few more articles on Busan and Jeju as well. I want to go back there in summer because I think in summer would be so different and so beautiful.

just unfortunate that we still needed to wear jackets that could swim in the ocean. anyway, until next time, happy travels. I'll see you then.