18 November 2025
The plan for the day is to travel from Gwangju to Seoul by KTX (South Korea’s High Speed Train) in the morning and spend the afternoon in Myeongdong. Myeongdong is a famous shopping district in the heart of Seoul, known for its dense concentration of Korean cosmetics, fashion brands, restaurants and vibrant street food. My original plan was to go explore the Daehak-ro and Naksan area in the afternoon but Seoul was experiencing an unusual cold spell on this day. I thought Naksan, being at higher elevation would be cold, so our plan changed. Where we stayed in Seoul
Our hotel in Seoul for the next 3 nights is the Ibis Ambassador Myeongdong. We chose this hotel because it is located close to bus stops along Namdaemun-ro, Euljiro 1-ga (Line 2) subway station and the bus stop for the limousine bus to the airport is just at its doorstep!
Travel from Gwangju to Seoul
The journey by KTX took about 2 hours. Once again, I booked our tickets online from the Korail website.
There are two KTX stations serving Seoul City – Yongsan Station and Seoul Station. We chose to take the KTX to Seoul Station since it is closer to our hotel.
It was close to noon when we arrived in Seoul. From Seoul Station, we queued and boarded a taxi for a short ride to our hotel. Since we are too early for check-in, the hotel staff stored our luggage and we went out to have lunch and explore Myeongdong.
Lunch at
Sinseon Seolleongtang(Myeongdong Branch)
Sinseon Seolleongtang is a popular restaurant chain found all over Korea serving up tasty bowls of ox bone soup known as seolleongtang.
My wife and I had our first taste of this dish in 2012 after the restaurant was featured in a SBS korean drama called “Brilliant Legacy” and we went to hunt for the restaurant. Since then, we always wanted to taste this dish again and we found that there is a branch located in Myeongdong.
The Myeongdong branch was located on the 2nd floor of a building but is was not difficult to find. The menu was displayed on the ground floor. It was pretty much similar to before but the price had risen quite a bit. Inflation everywhere!
We ordered one standard shaved beef seolleongtang and one Myeongpum Galbi (beef rib) seolleongtang.
The rich and creamy white broth is the result of many hours of boiling ox bone. This dish is extremely nice on a cold day. The dish came with a bowl of steamed rice that we could add to the soup. There were also kimchi and radish that we could help ourselves to.
It is quite common to find a pair of scissors provided on the table, plus other utensils – Korean metal chopsticks and long handle soup.
Craving on ox-bone soup satisfied, we went to do some shopping.
Shopping at Myeongdong
The first stop we made was at the Olive Young cosmetic store located opposite the restaurant. There are many Olive Young stores in Korea nowadays and there are several even within Myeongdong itself. The store was packed with shoppers from abroad. This is a sign that Korea’s beauty products are top notched and highly sought after internationally.
The Olive Young store provides duty free shopping. Shoppers need to show their passports to claim the tax refund. We went back to our hotel to check in and dump the heavy bags of cosmetic we bought.
From our hotel, we went into the underground shopping mall and up to Lotte Departmental Store located right across Namdaemun-ro. We bought some Korean snacks, Kanu freeze-dry coffee at Lotte Mart. We were also looking out for toys for our grandchildren but this is the wrong place to shop for toys.
Returning to Myeongdong, we wandered into any stores that caught our fancy.
One store not to miss is the HBAF store. HBAF stands for Honey Butter Almond & Friends and is the largest nut brand in Korea. Besides the classic honey butter almonds, there are now plenty of other flavours to choose from.
We also walked up and down a 12-storey Daiso store with an elevator that is practically not fit for purpose (too small and slow). Although it is a 12 storey building, the store is not big as area of each floor is quite small. We managed to buy a toy car on one of the floors but otherwise, I did not enjoy my visit to this store. I am not sure why this store is so popular and crowded.
We also bought more Korean snacks and souvenirs to bring home from the local stores. There are also cafes aplenty.
Dinner at Hanam Pig BBQ, Myeongdong Branch
Myeongdong really become more vibrant when evening came and the street food vendors popped up like magic. Although there are plenty of tempting street food in Myeongdong, I have learnt to stay away from them.
For our dinner, we chose to have pork BBQ at the Hanam Pig House. Hanam Pig House is a popular Korean BBQ chain specializing in premium, grilled pork (pork belly, shoulder loin, ribs). Being a chain restaurant loved by the locals, the quality may not be the best in town but it would be value for money and the food and service would be more consistent.
The restaurant only serves pork. We ordered the samgyeopsal (pork belly) and one other cut. The staff did the cooking for us on a hotplate.
The chef would use a scissor to cut the meat into bite sizes chunks.
Aprons are provided to protect our clothes from oil splatter but there is no air suction device above the hotplate. Our clothes would have the oily smell thereafter.
We also ordered a Doenjang-jjigae (Fermented soybean paste stew) and a Gyeranjjim (steamed egg custard).
Steamed egg custard with some roe in it.
Overall Hanam Pig House serves delicious pork BBQ and other dishes. We enjoyed our pork BBQ dinner in Seoul but I still prefer the Black Pig BBQ I had in Jeju that was cooked over a charcoal fire.
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