This first week in Seoul was so much fun! This is not my first time in Seoul, but I will be staying for much longer this time. The last time I went was in 2019 and for around 3 weeks. I am undoubtedly posting this during week 2 or 3 so I already have my first video of my “Korea Travels” series published on YouTube, which you can find under this paragraph!
In this article and the video above, I want to show how I spent my first week in Korea (while also working). So if you are a digital nomad ( sort of like myself but not really), I will be writing the times that I work in KST (Korean Standard Time) and EST (Eastern Standard Time) so that you can get a clearer picture (and so that, hopefully, you don’t get too confused). Before I start with my week, I want to write about what we needed to do before going to South Korea.
Before Entering
(Written in November of 2022)Before getting on our flight to South Korea, we filled out 2 forms. One was strongly recommended by the US Embassy of Korea and the other was a mandatory form.
- Q-Code – This was what the US Embassy recommended you fill out. It asks about your lodging, passport info, contact in Korea info, and symptoms related to COVID-19 and Monkey Pox. You should fill this out 3 days before arrival.
- K-Eta – As of September 1st of 2021, you must fill out the K-Eta if you have a passport from a country with a visa-free agreement with Korea. You can find that list of countries/regions here. THIS IS NOT A VISA. This is more like an entry request and approval of it is required before attempted entry. Approval of this request does not guarantee admission to South Korea.
Here are some quick links to the specific days and their summaries.
Let’s go into more detail about what I did in my first week!
Day One
I actually am counting the day we arrive as Day One since we touched down before noon and still have a little over half a day to do things. Our flight attendants announced that when we landed it would be around 12°C (53°F), which made me super glad that I grabbed a jacket for the plane. I mean I obviously brought a jacket and a coat for later on in my trip because it is November, but I’m glad I brought an extra one for the flight. They also announced that at ICN (Incheon Airport) we have to wear a mask the entire time.
After picking up our luggage, we sat on a nearby bench for about 30 minutes to see how we should get to our AirBnB. We ultimately decided to take the metro. The ride wasn’t too bad. It was maybe a 1½ hour’s ride, not including the line change and carrying 2 50-lb bags down a flight of stairs. When we got to our stop, we decided that we didn’t really wanna walk 10 minutes while trying to manage our checked bags (I should mention that my bag is pretty beaten up and in one corner is being held together by glue and packing tape), our rolling carry-ons, and heavy backpacks. So we ordered an Uber. Uber isn’t necessarily the most used rideshare app, but it was the only one we had at the ready and we really just wanted to get to the apartment faster.
Our apartment isn’t big. It’s super cozy and has free wifi. It has what we wanted: 2 rooms where we could teach, a kitchen, and a private bathroom. We don’t need fancy toilets (I have a disaster story about that one. I’ll probably bring it up in my podcast), heated floors, or a bathtub. While these things are nice, we didn’t come all the way here just to stay in the apartment all day. If I wanted to do that, I would have stayed home. We wanted a place with the necessities. The only thing we forgot to look for was a washing machine but we have a solution to that, which will probably be written about later in the week and/or mentioned in my podcast.
So we settled down in our place, set up our work areas, and headed out to find some food because at this point we were starving. We ended up going to a chicken place nearby called Don Chicken. We were about 10 early and the lady was just getting there. She let us come in and order even though she was just opening. She was super sweet. She spoke little to no English and we spoke little to no Korean, so there was a language barrier between us. That didn’t stop us from being able to communicate, though. We ordered a Honey Black Pepper and a Roasted Garlic set of chicken. It would be an understatement to say that it tasted incredible (and you’ll see why on Day Two). We gobbled down as much as we could before we asked if we could take it with us, which she agreed to. Don Chicken is definitely a restaurant that I would call a “must” when you come to Eunpyeong.
Don Chicken
서울 은평구 응암로13길 2
After that, we came back to the apartment where my mom went to work and where I took a shower before promptly conking out.
Day Two
Day Two had an early start for my mom and me. We woke up at around 5 am, not to go anywhere, but to work. It wasn’t too bad. I only worked about an hour before making an attempt to go explore. I went down to the main street and tried to enter a cafe when I realized that I forgot my mask like a dummy, so I just went back to the apartment. On the bright side, I got a few street pictures and a polaroid for my travel journal!
A few hours later, my mom and I had a late brunch and headed out. We decided that we wanted to do something free this day, so we went to the Gyeonghuigung Palace, which is inside Gyeonghuigung Park. Right now, the actual palace is under renovation. That, however, didn’t stop us from enjoying the vividly colored park. We didn’t realize that the Seoul Museum of History was right next door until we looked at the map. We decided to take advantage of being there and paid the museum a visit.
Viewing the exhibits was free and there are a few things that I have to label as my favorite part of this visit. The mini models are absolutely stunning and they look like they took a long time to make. There’s a room where you can see a small version of Seoul but, to be honest, the mini-model was pretty big (You can see it in the gallery above). I also really liked the interactive hallway on the second floor. I tried to interact but I don’t speak Korean besides a few basic words. Most, of which, revolve around food. There’s a library and another exhibit that we didn’t have time to visit because we had to get back to the apartment to work (not me).
Gyeonghuigung Palace
서울 종로구 새문안로 45 (우) 03177
지번신문로2가 2-1
When getting to the AirBnB, my mom went to work and I took a nap. When I woke up, she was done and we fried up 2 bread slices from the pack we got from a local GS-25 and warmed up our leftover chicken. When I say that the chicken tasted exactly the same the day after, I mean it. It was so scrumptious. I really wish that we had more so that I could be eating it while writing this part of the post.
Day Three
Day Three! I did not sleep a wink because I was editing the video that goes with this post and writing about Day Two. Most of the “editing” that took place was just waiting for my pictures and videos uploaded to the cloud. The longest one was the clip of me setting up my workspace. And it had refused to be uploaded for the longest. It took hours. But Day Three was spent with Bestie and a friend that she was here with.
The four of us (My mom, Bestie, Friend, and me) started off by attempting to meet at the Sanrio Lovers Club but when we got there, we saw that you needed to make a reservation via Naver. So we walked around for a bit before they called a taxi to take us to the mall where the Cinnamoroll Cafe is. I was super excited because it is so cute and pastel. It’s a pastel lover’s dream cafe. You also had to make an appointment, but we were able to make one for an hour later. So while Bestie and Friend ate the last Bacon, Egg, and Cheese from a coffee place on the ground floor, Momma and I went to the convenience store. I bought a cheese ramen bowl and a cheese omelet on a stick for protein. Momma, who has developed an egg intolerance (to read about why click here), decided to buy some mixed almonds packs and red bead buns. We ate our breakfast together at like 11:45 am. When we were done at like 12:15ish we headed upstairs for our 12:20 reservation.
We ordered some pretty cute-looking drinks. I got the Sweet Peach Soda that had the little Ice Cream on top. It was delicious. I took my Polaroid camera for a picture to put in my travel journal and decided that I wanted Bestie to be in it. It turned out better than I had hoped, especially since I just figured out how to use the selfie timer. Our limit was until 1:30 and we stayed until the last minute before going up 2 floors to the Animate store for some manga that Bestie collects. I believe that on the floor below it is where there’s a cafe with merch for the Under The Oak Tree webtoon. Afterward, we went to a nearby Daiso to get some miscellaneous things like markers, cuticle clippers, bang hair rollers, and some double-sided tape. Momma had to go back to work, so the girls and I went to the net stop, which was the Knife Gallery in Insadong.
The Knife Gallery was super cool! There were all sorts of things ranging from ninja stars to swords and kitchen knives to maces. Bestie was looking to get something for her Boyfie to use while hunting, Friend was getting a gift for her son, and I was just enjoying myself. It was so cool to see some traditional Korean Swords outside of a museum. We also stopped by this souvenir store where that lady was super sweet.
We finished off our whole day by visiting (the ending parts of) the Myeong-dong Night Market, where we got some $1 earrings and some face products (I got a bunch of masks as gifts).
Day Four
Day 4 was pretty dull in comparison to the other days. I worked at 5:00am and none of my students showed up. I went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 3pm (yikes). One of our friends here is a Zumba instructor so we did a girls’ night where we did about an hour of Zumba (more like 20 minutes for us because my mom had to work and I woke up late and we got there late) and had dinner together. I didn’t take any pictures or videos except for me saying that I woke up at 3pm. It was also raining super hard and we got several emergency/urgent weather alerts on our phones.
Day Five
Day Five coming in clutch! I didn’t have to wake up super early but I had my meeting at 10 (which we were also late for but that was all my fault). After the meeting, we went to a nearby restaurant for an hour or 2. I finally tried Black Bean Noodles!
Jajangmyeon (자장면) — or Jjajangmyeon (짜장면) — is a Korean-Chinese noodle dish where the noodles are covered in a delicious thick black bean sauce, pieces of pork, and vegetables. There are different variations of this dish, including one made with seafood, but I decided to go for the original. It was stunning! The taste was so good! I honestly don’t know if I ever would have tried it if my aunt’s student didn’t recommend it. I never heard of it before and if I did I wasn’t paying attention.
We hung out around the Itaewon station for a bit and I decided to take a polaroid for my travel journal. We talked to one of our friends for a bit and discovered that she liked Marvel movies but wasn’t able to go often because no one near really likes them like that and she’s got a baby. So her husband agreed to look after the baby while the three of us went to the movies. We went to a mini-mall in the Seoul World Cup Stadium and ate dinner at a place called No Brand Burger. I don’t know why, but it made me super smiley. They even had a No Brand Cola and a No Brand Cider but it wasn’t available on tap, so I couldn’t get it with my food. My mom and I split a Bulgogi Burger and we were in love. It’s right across from the movie there called Megabox.
Our friend speaks Korean so she was able to help us buy tickets and popcorn at the Kiosk. We probably could have done it in English but it was just faster for her to help us than trying to struggle on our own. Before the movie, we went up to the counter to get our popcorn but then saw that they had a package where you can get 1 popcorn bucket, 2 drinks, and get a Wakanda Forever cup. We had just purchased the same thing but without the cup and it was only ₩1,500 more. So we got our friend to ask how we could get the package with what we already paid (the cup by itself was ₩12,000). The workers were super nice. They said that they could refund our things on the same card and then ring up a new order as the package since we already had the food items. We agreed and got the cup. We then went to our designated screen and watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which I was emotionally unprepared for, and then went home.
Megabox Sangam World Cup Stadium
240 Woldeukeom-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul
Day Six
Day Six was also a late start for me. I had no work, so I woke up at about 11am. Day Six was also Day #2 with Bestie. We met up in Namdaemun Market, which is my 2nd favorite market in Seoul so far. I had done some previous research and found that I could get glasses for cheap in most Asian countries. I have been wearing glasses for a little over a decade at his point, so I know how expensive they are in the US and how expensive my round ones were in Portugal. I saw a video and read an article made by TwinSpeak where I found a recommendation on where to go (I totally suggest checking them out. They have a ton of great articles about Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia. Click on their name in this article and it’ll take you to their blog).
The place TwinSpeak recommends is called DaeSeong AnKyeong (대성안경). There are tons of places where you can get glasses for a good price in this same area but since they had such a good opinion of it, we decided to check it out. It’s down this little alleyway that we passed the first time cause we couldn’t see the entrance to it. There’s a Hotteok (or Hoeddeok) place on the corner and it was super popular. The people were lining up right on the corner, blocking out view (because we aren’t very tall). Once we got in the place, they offered us little yogurt drinks called Yakult (yes, it does have lactose). There was a language barrier because they didn’t speak much English and we don’t speak much Korean, but we were able to communicate through Google Translate, a calculator, and good old-fashioned pen and paper.
When we were able to communicate that we wanted to buy glasses, they immediately took us over to the area near the eye machines. There, they had frames made from Korean plastic priced at around ₩9,000 or about $7. I was shocked, to say the least. They let us try on multiple frames and gave (read as brought over) some suggestions on which frames could work better for our faces. We told them that we wanted to get an eye test (because we were due for a test anyway) and they took us to the eye machine. They didn’t need to dilate our eyes and it was a short, simple examination (it was also free).
I’m going to put how much we paid in total above the map (below ⇩). We decided that we were going to get 2 frames each and were able to pay upfront with our credit/debit cards. They told us to come back in an hour and our glasses would be done.
During that hour, we split up for a bit in the market. Before meeting back up at a store called BTSeoul. The owner was super sweet and kind! She let me film the inside of her store and even subscribed to my channel. I’m totally going to keep going to her stall whenever I go to Namdaemun Market. I got a cute Tata card holder and lanyard that I put together to make my current train pass holder. Here’s her location and her Instagram.
BTSeoul
33-30 Hoehyeon-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul
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After an hour of exploring, Bestie and I went back to the glasses place while Momma and Friend got some hotteok at the corner. The glasses were in the frames and all. All that was left was to fit them to our faces/ears. They let us put them on and looked to see where the adjustments needed to be made. This wasn’t an extra service, just part of the process. After the fitting, they showed us that they were blue light lenses! They did that automatically, which we appreciate because we both work with computers all day. There are other lenses that you can choose from (like glasses transitioning to sunglasses when outdoors) but I didn’t really pay attention to those. Ready for the ring up? I paid ₩56,000 ($42) and Bestie paid ₩94,000 ($71). In total. Yeah, I know. Bestie and I kept doing happy dances the whole day.
DaeSong AnKyeong (대성안경)
3-5 Namdaemunno 4(sa)-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
My mom had to work, so she went back to our place while I stayed with Bestie and Friend. The three of us decided to go to the Han River, where I took a polaroid of the sunset to put in my travel journal. We then walked across the Han River on the bridge. I’m sure that it’s a wonderful walk when it’s not super cold outside. I don’t know how, but we forgot that it was breezy November and decided to commit to a 30-minute walk. Like you can’t back out halfway through. On the bright side, I got in the rest of my steps for that day! When we got to the other side, we took a short walk by the boats and the little heart tunnel before promptly looking for a place to eat. We decided to eat at a place called Paradisio (I think). The food was good and I brought some back to our place for Momma.
Day Seven
Day Seven started early again! And 37% of my students showed up. It’s better than the 0% that showed up on Day Three and Day Four. I started editing and refining this post while waiting for my mom to finish the rest of her classes. Day Seven is sort of a chill day. The only thing that was on our list was to wash clothes (because we didn’t realize that there wasn’t a washing machine in our AirBnB) and do grocery shopping.
To wash our clothes, we went to our favorite laundromat cafe: Washtown. Yes, you read that right. A laundromat cafe. A place where you can enjoy the usefulness of a laundromat and the ambiance of a cafe. On our last trip to Korea, this was actually one of the cafes we liked the most. Since had so many clothes, we ran our load for an extra 20 minute cycle in the dryer before packing them up in our carry-ons and going back to the AirBnB. The girl was super nice and sweet to us, just like last time.
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Washtown
478-3 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul
After I returned to home base, I did a few more things that I needed to do and we went to eat at a nearby fried chicken place called 60 Chicken. We ordered the incredibly tasty 고추닭봉 (Red Pepper Chicken). Here’s their website so that you can find whichever location is closest to you.
JustMari's Adventures 