Hey Hive!
So if you missed the last few posts, I've been sharing about our first trip to Seoul back in Nov 2022! We were waiting post-covid for everyone to go on their holidays before taking a big one and we finally decided to go on our honeymoon! It's also our first time experiencing Fall so we were double excited!
Last week, we started a new day in Hondae! It's known for being a hip place for young adults and college kids with lots of street art and character shops so we thought it'd be cool to check out.
We visited the very huge Kakao Friends shop right outside the station and saw lots of cute merchandise and lifestyle goods! A few floors up in the same building we also came across a very cool and expensive-looking cafe!
It had a very zen and modern look to it unlike any other cafe we've seen.
I teased about the street art last week, so let's dally no further and continue our journey!
12 Nov 2022. Saturday.
Hongdae is known as the art district of Seoul and they have a special mural street to prove it! We actually found out about this street through a youtube travel video which unfortunately didn't show much but we figured since we're here we'd check it out for ourselves!
It's a small alley right next to the front gate of Hongik University which has plenty of art students so I figure the students are probably the ones who did the street art. Initially we had some trouble finding our way but it was a nice day out for a walk anyway, albeit a little warm.
Eventually we found some a wall with street art right next to a cafe featuring some familiar characters on a very colourful background. It looked so good!
This small alleyway had art covering almost every inch of the walls it was so so cool! The other wall wasn't as colourful though but had a very accurate drawing of a lady.
We walked through this alley and ended up in the back houses of Hongdae it seemed. There were some quiet office buildings here and more obscure cafes.
There were more street art here but none as impressive as the first wall we saw. It was curious that they used English letters instead of Korean though, even though it didn't really make much sense anyway.
Unfortunately I think part of the mural street was closed off for some construction so we were blocked off. I think one of the buildings here was getting refurbished or something. But that didn't stop some people from spraying stuff on the construction barriers though, and there was one I thought was pretty funny.
We did see a few more creative ones in smaller alleys here and there, and even found our favourite curry place again!
There were some art that was more inspiring than others though. These back alley ones didn't seem like much thought went into them.
We were trying to find more but I guess most of the mural street was closed off. Very unfortunate but we did see a few more street art pieces in a different side of Hongdae though.
Personally I really liked this one, but it would've been cool to see more art like this!
It was pretty warm out today so we decided to take a walk and try the first bubble tea shop we came across.
Of course the first one we stumbled on was Coco, which is a Taiwanese chain that we tried the previous day. We decided to get a different flavour though, chocolate bubble tea which was meh.
We weren't hungry for lunch yet and we passed by this shop called Play In the Box, which is a photo booth shop!
We figured we'd try it since we have yet to take photos using a photo booth aka purikura or neoprints. We always make it a habit to take such photos whenever we're in a country that has it, and they're very popular in North Asia.
They had a couple of photo booths inside the shop but the shop was unmanned so I guess it was self-service.
There were lots of props to choose from like hats, glasses and hairbands that you could borrow for your photos.
I think each photo booth machine had a different theme but we saw this one with some very cute cats as desserts so we tried that.
We had some trouble with the machine but thankfully these machines are very generous in that you could retake your photos as many times as you'd like and choose the best ones.
Thankfully we were the only ones in the shop at the time so we could take all the time we needed and played around with different props until we ended up with some nice photos!
After that we took a stroll outside and came across a few more street art including a very colourful piece on this building that looked like it was made of shipping containers!
Walking along we came to this street with some boutique shops that reminded me a little of somewhere in Singapore.
We saw a LINE Friends shop across the street and wanted to check it out but I think they were closed at the time unfortunately.
We went over to check and were passed by a very cute shiba inu!
Unfortunately the LINE Friends store was closed since it was still early in the day. But we kept it in mind for later.
They had some very adorable illustrations of the LINE Friends in a new style that looked pretty cute. I still preferred the regular LINE Friends look though.
We were getting hungry for lunch so we went back towards the main part of Hongdae where were before and where most of the restaurants were.
We didn't see much of this area just now since we went away in search of the mural street so it was cool to see all the shops now as they were opening up for the day.
There was this huge barbecue restaurant that looked pretty good and we figured from the size and its prominent location it must be pretty popular. Unfortunately it looked like a nightspot so it wasn't open yet.
We were getting pretty hungry though so we just decided on a random place.
We saw this advertisement for a restaurant called Hahoe Village that was located below ground and they had so many different classic Korean dishes that looked so good! It was also in English so we figured they were probably tourist-friendly so we decided to check it out!
It was just a short flight of stairs down from the main street where we found it.
It was a small place but it looked homely and comfortable. It also looked like a lot of people have been here before since there were so many signatures on the wall.
There were some random knickknacks on the wall too like these tribal and folk masks.
Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the menu but they had classic Korean dishes like potato pancake with different fillings, kimchi stew, japchae, rice cakes with different broths, dumplings, and bibimbap which I ordered.
Sean only wanted a small snack so he chose the gimbap and we shared both dishes. The gimbap was cold while the bibimbap was hot.
The bibimbap was actually really good! I guess you can't go wrong with it since it's just veggies and rice in a bowl topped with a fried egg but it was yummy and nutritious too! It was a very satisfying meal and felt healthy too since it wasn't oily and had lots of vegetables.
I can't really remember what type of gimbap this was but it might've just been their standard gimbap. I don't think it was stated what was inside but it was yummy too. We were pleasantly surprised by how good the food was since the restaurant looked pretty rustic, but I guess that's what makes the food even better.
After eating our fill we went out into the street and decided to head back towards the LINE Friends store since we figured they were probably open by now.
On the way there we saw these people with a very cute doggo that was getting pet.
Back at the LINE Friends store we were so excited so be greeted by a huge Brown plushie at the entrance!
There was also a small Sally statue near the door and I had to grab a pic with my matching Sally shirt!
They also had this photo spot where you could pretend to be a mini plush with Lenini?
There were multiple floors to the store but the cafe downstairs was off limits unfortunately. I think it was due to some covid restrictions that they couldn't open the cafe, sadly.
The cashier had some of mini LINE Friends plushies on display.
There was also a statue of Brown and Lenny that looked pretty cute so we had to grab a pic.
The wall also had these simple colourful LINE Friends prints that I wishes they had made into magnets or coasters or something.
The screens behind the cashier even had the LINE Friends waving to us!
We went upstairs where there were also some BT21 merchandise on display. I'm not really a fan of these characters though since they look a little weird to me.
There was actually quite a lot of BT21 stuff including these models of the rooms of the characters on display.
They even had statues of the BT21 characters up here too.
But there were some cute LINE Friends stuff here including some special Sally products!
There was also a claw machine with different prizes from both LINE Friends and BT21 but I felt like it was a kind of scam since you could just buy them here in the store.
On the other side there were walls of LINE Friends lifestyle good that looked cute.
There was also a pretty heavy cushion for Sally's other form where she looked more like a chick instead of a duck but it was cute.
We went back downstairs to see what was on the other side of the store.
There was a wall of epoxy stickers that I was tempted to buy ngl.
I didn't know they had a collab with Minions too but it looked a little weird to me.
They had some cute keyboards and lamps here in display but nothing we really needed. I think we bought a circular container with Brown's face on it with sweets that we could then reuse for coins.
But I think that's it for today! Sorry for the lack of street art but we didn't know the street was closed at the time. Tune in next week for more adventures in Hongdae where we discover a hidden resort and an "interesting" museum? Here's a teaser:
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #238 (Seoul): Meeting Kute Kakao Friends in Hongdae!🐱