Our sixth and last day in South Korea saw us visiting Mapo-gu to explore the area around Hongdae.
Mapo-gu
Hongdae
We arrived at Hongdae around 10 AM, only to discover the vast majority of shops didn’t open until midday. So other than the odd students hurrying from the subway station to nearby Hongik University, we enjoyed having the quiet streets almost all to ourselves.
This was the H-Pulse Building…
…which was also home to Seoul Bank with its mascot coming out of a manhole cover on the ground floor.
Hongik University had its iconic building spanning over the main road. It was a stone’s throw from Isaac Toast & Coffee.
Isaac Toast & Coffee
이삭토스트, 93 Wausan-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Unlike the branches we’d walked past near our hotel, this one had a dine-in area that was perfect for us as we needed somewhere to kill time before the stores opened.
Grilled Bulgalbi (4,600 won), which came with brown bread. D found it to be a decent breakfast but thought there was too much cabbage and the meat did not have much flavour. He would’ve preferred the ratio of ingredients in a proper burger.
Bacon & Potato Pizza (5,100 won). This one had a decent mix of textures in a neat package that accommodated a bit of every ingredient with each bite. The hash brown was a delicious carb-on-carb addition, while the pizza sauce did indeed give the sandwich a pizza flavour.
Kiwi Juice (3,200 won, left). This had an intense kiwi flavour as if blended from frozen fresh fruit.
Green Grape Sparkling (3,200 won, right). This was rather unremarkable as it was just syrup with soda water.
Of course, this was the branch that JOLLY visited to film with Ollie’s dad. The store had a couple of screenshots from the video on display.
Would No Brand Burger’s ‘good enough burger’ have given D a satisfying burger experience?
Angel in Us
Angel in us, 2F, L7 Hongdae Lotte Hotel, 141 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Angel-in-us is a coffeehouse chain featured in Korean dramas, including Crash Landing on You (2019).
We expected to be here for a while, as the shops still had a good hour before opening so both D and I ordered supersized 1-litre drinks to nurse while we waited.
Yujya Tea (1 L, left). This had plenty of fine yuzu peel and bright yuzu flavour. While filled half with ice, it did mellow the intensity of the yuzu marmalade to an enjoyable level.
Iced Americano (1 L, right). This was half filled with ice, but again, worked to keep the drink cool for longer while retaining sufficient intensity in the flavour. The coffee itself was rather unremarkable but decent enough.
The branch at Lotte’s L7 HONGDAE was furnished as a cozy space designed for lingering.
Lotteria
Lotteria, GF, L7 Hongdae Lotte Hotel, 141 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Lotteria opened this unmanned smart store in 2022. It featured electronic kiosks, vending machines, and a self-service drinks station. A tiered dining zone in the adjacent space notified customers when their order was ready to be picked up from one of the windows in the pick-up zone.
Kakao Friends Hongdae Flagship Store
카카오프렌즈 홍대 플래그십 스토어, 162 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Gong Mi Hak x Kakao Friends
3F 카카오프렌즈 홍대 플래그십 스토어, 162 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
The third floor of the building featured a Kakao Friends cafe in partnership with Gong Mi Hak.
It had a selection of sweet potato-based sweets. Sweet potato is Choonsik’s favourite food.
Kakao Friends Factory Store
B1 카카오프렌즈 홍대 플래그십 스토어, 162 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Down an escalator to the right of the main Kakao Friends store was the Factory Store. We weren’t sure it was open as the escalator didn’t run unless someone was using it, but luckily it was.
There were a lot of discontinued or seasonal items on sale, but nothing we were keen to adopt.
At a nearby bookstore, we spotted more Choonsik goods, but no price tags.
Samsung Hongdae
삼성전자서비스 홍대휴대폰센터, 171 Digital Plaza Hongdae Branch, Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
South Korea is the home of Samsung, so we had to satisfy our curiosity about how the brand was portrayed domestically.
The store was a huge space with an attached cafe, but there wasn’t much out of the ordinary from say a flagship Apple store.
At the front of the store was a robotic arm that would respond to customer requests to place the ‘bespoke’ coloured covers onto a Galaxy Z Flip4.
Cafe BetterDay
카페 베럴데이, 147 Eoulmadang-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
A coffee shop was never more than a few steps away in Seoul, and Cafe Better Day enticed us with a sesame latte.
Black Sesame Latte (6,500). This one was not nearly as rich, creamy or smooth as the one we had from Yeonnam Bangagan. The black sesame powder left a graininess, while the espresso overpowered the sesame flavour, giving an overall mouthfeel of a grainy coffee.
Omija Tea (6,000 won). This was our second time trying omija tea, and this one was just as delicious as it was pretty.
Between cafes, we managed to enjoy the rare few plum blossoms still around.
BBQ Chicken and Beer
BB.Q Chicken and Beer, 131-1 Eoulmadang-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
We’d heard amazing things about BBQ Chicken, which stands for ‘Best of the Best Quality’ Chicken. Their staff are said to attend a Chicken University to learn how to cook their signature Golden Olive Chicken.
Golden Olive Chicken (23,000). This was every bit as juicy and tender on the inside, and light and crispy on the outside as they promised. It was easily one of the best Korean fried chickens we’d eaten, yet luckily for us in Sydney, Seocho-dong Incredible Chicken comes perilously close to that standard.
We did enjoy the bottomless pickles, which cut through any greasiness remarkably well.
The crackers would’ve probably been better appreciated by those who enjoy beer.
The bathroom at BBQ Chicken and Beer had an adobrable sign.
Shops
Line Friends Hongdae
GF, L7 Hongdae Lotte Hotel, 141 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Jung-gu
Seoul Station
Seeing as this was our last day in South Korea, we made a last stop at Lotte Mart to pick up a few things we wanted to bring home.
But not before amusing ourselves with the truly diverse range of juice concentrates available for sale. We were after omija, hallabong and yujya tea.
We satisfied our curiosity about Shine Muscat grapes with a bunch of them that were certified as having a sweetness of 16 brix.
They were picture-picture, plump and huge.
And now we know that Shine Muscat grapes are worth every bit of the hype! They did indeed have the rumoured subtle melon/mango flavour with limited acidity. They were truly the best grapes we’d eaten, and have likely ruined us for cheap run-of-the-mill grapes forever (not that we were ever a fan of them).
To pair with our Shine Muscat grapes, we picked up a muscat-flavoured soju. At 13.5%, the high alcohol content was very evident on tasting, with the syrupy sweetness of the muscat flavour not altogether successful in masking the bitterness.
While We picked up these Nongshim Potato Chip Dongdaemun Tteokbokki Yeop Tteok Flavour, or ‘super spicy rice cake’ flavour. To D’s delight, they delivered on being super spicy while remaining flavourful and predominantly savoury.
On our way back to our hotel, we popped into a smaller grocery store.
We picked up a carbonated version of Hatai Pear Juice. It had the fresh, sweet pear flavour of the original but we missed the bits of pear flesh at the bottom.
With a last view of Namsan Tower, we headed back to our hotel room to pack our bags.
Final thoughts on South Korea
South Korea was less shiny and more gritty than portrayed in Korean dramas. To be honest, we were initially disappointed, having expected to experience Korean culture, nature and modernity at a similar pace and richness as we’ve found in Japan from the start. But on learning more about the country’s history through its impeccable national museums, it became evident that South Korea is still in the midst of rediscovering its past and reestablishing its identity subsequent to its long period of Japanese occupation. To directly compare the richness of the two cultures without noting their historical differences would be unfair.
More practically, South Korea is a much cheaper destination than Japan, but Japan is by far the more interesting destination. That is for the simple reason that Japan has significant resources aimed at domestic tourism, meaning travelling around the country is almost always interesting as long as one can understand a basic level of Japanese. However, there was very little of the same in South Korea outside of its museums (with the exception of Jeju, and to a much lesser extent, Jeonju) with most cultural experiences focused heavily on hanbok rental. Perhaps we will see more development in that respect in the future. Regardless, I’m sure we’ll be back at some point.
In any case, after almost four years since our last visit, we were ready to move onwards to Japan!
Seoul – Hongdae was Day 6 of 6 for the South Korea 2023 trip.