Bukchon Hanok Village is home to over 900 traditional Korean houses and it is one of the recommended places to visit while on holiday in Seoul. The location didn’t disappoint me at all, but many tourists dressed up in hanbok and spent ages taking multiple shots and some were even doing a live feed on the street. They do have a number of tourist officials to control the crowds and make sure they don’t invade the local people’s privacy, especially around the hilltop. I still think it is not easy to enjoy the architecture of the buildings. All we did was try to avoid photobombing other people’s photos or videos. It was not easy to take any nice shots.
To visit this area, you will need to alight at the Anguk station Exit 2 and walk for 11 minutes, using KakaoMap or Naver Map, which provide reliable navigation around South Korea. A few shops rent or sell hanbok but we didn’t visit any of these.
Around the village, there are many cafes where you can enjoy a nice cold brew or restaurants selling ginseng chicken soup. Most of these areas are quite hilly and on a hot day, it can be quite hard work. However, once you reach the top, you can get some nice views of Seoul.
Before we headed back to our hotel, we walked to one of the most Instagrammable cafes in a century-old Hanok. I read about this cafe and the reviews were mixed. After I visited the place, I can understand why. I do think the cafe is overrated.
Yes, their pastries and bread look and taste great, however, the crowds there were quite annoying. Everyone was taking photos. Again, you can’t walk a few metres without accidentally walking into someone’s shot so you had to wait for them to finish before you could continue walking. The tourists were mostly unfriendly and quite selfish. It was super busy, hence it was not easy finding seating. Also, the grounds and seating area are uneven with multiple platforms which was not great for my visually impaired daughter to navigate.
We ended up sitting outside the cafe, however, you get so many people wanting to take photos at the entrance and we felt like a third party in their photos. There were many recommended pastries, but we could only fit in an iced coffee, milk tea and a Hazelnut Chouchou 5,500 KRW which was very nice.
We then went back to Myeongdong where our hotel is based. Near our hotel, there was the branch of Myeongdong Kyoja, located at 8, Myeongdong 10-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul. They only offer four items on the menu as it specializes in dumplings and noodle soup. We ordered them all to try! It was inexpensive, especially as they are recommended by Michelin.
The food was delivered by robots which was quite novel! The noodles, broths and dumplings were so delicious. Their signature garlic-laden kimchi is made in-house and is not for everyone. I found it too garlicky and couldn’t have more. My son loved it though!
The soybean noodle is only available from April to October. The cold noodle was nice to eat, however, the soybean soup (made from black beans and big beans) can get quite sickly after consuming too much.
We did enjoy it so much we went back again, this time to the main restaurant where we had the noodles and dumplings again as it was so delicious! I would definitely recommend it!