Trip Report: South Korea – Country #87

Trip report: South Korea

Visited in June 2019

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“You have to go to Seoul!! It is as cool as here, but four times as cheap!”

This sentence, which a Dutchman said to me seven years ago in a bar in Tokyo, remained in my head until today.

My trip to Japan in 2012 was so awesome that I still call Japan my favorite travel country among all countries I have visited. And Tokyo as my favorite big city. Needless to say, the Dutchman’s sentence made me want to go to Seoul. Seoul was even the reason why I would have named South Korea as one of the five countries I looked forward to the most on my trip to 197 countries.

South Korea was the second of four stops on a journey through East Asia. Before we arrived in South Korea, we spent five pleasant days in Taiwan and would continue our journey afterwards to China and North Korea. Despite North Korea, one of the most special destinations of this world, South Korea should have become my highlight on the entire trip, mainly because of Seoul.

Five nights in Google Maps-less Seoul

It took us almost two hours to get from the airport in Incheon to our hotel. This was due to the location of the airport and the size of the city as well as the fact that South Korea is the only country I’ve been to where Google Maps doesn’t work. Since the Korean war there is a law in the country that forbids the distribution of South Korean maps to foreign countries. And Google is in a foreign country.

That doesn’t mean that Google Maps doesn’t work at all. You can find destinations, and the blue circle that represents your location is also visible. But routes don’t work. Consequently, you simply walk towards the place you want to go to. But because the destinations are not always exactly at the point where Google Maps displays them, finding places can sometimes be a real challenge. The South Koreans have their own app called Naver Maps to replace Google Maps. However, you have to know Korean writing in order to use it (update: it is also available in English now). An alternative is CityMapper, which calculates routes. Not a perfect Google Maps replacement, but better than nothing.

Two things in Seoul struck me immediately. First, Seoul is terribly smoggy! I’ve seen such a level of smog in China and India, but I didn’t expect it in an industrialized nation such as South Korea. I have read that more than half of the smog moves from the East Chinese coast to South Korea. So South Korea is not the main sinner, but it still surprised me.

Secondly, South Korea is the most westernized country in East Asia. Itaewon, where we had our hotel, was the most extreme. Although I knew that this was a popular expat district, I would say that 50% of the people there were not Koreans. With Itaewon I thought rather of a second Roppongi. Roppongi is the most popular neighborhood in Tokyo among foreigners, but an estimated 95% of the people you see there are still Japanese. A better preparation would certainly have helped to prevent this misunderstanding.

So, we had 4.5 days in Seoul. This time-frame was not enough to see everything we had planned. The city was simply too big. It would have been enough if the weather hadn’t been so bad on the third day. On this day it was rainy and the fog cover (probably mixed with smog) was so thick that one could hardly see anything. It was a lost day.

Nevertheless, the time we had was enough to see the most important sights. The coolest attraction by far was the Lotte World Tower, for me after the Tokyo Sky Tree the best observation tower I’ve ever been to. Also interesting were the Gyeongbokgung Palace and the Changdeokhung Palace.

In addition, we were able to visit other quarters besides Itaewon: Insadong, Gangnam and Myeongdong. Insadong would have turned out to be a good alternative to Itaewon, while I was super relieved that we didn’t take our hotel to Myeongdong. I found this quarter too hectic and anything but beautiful. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time anymore to visit Hongdae, another district people say it’s interesting.

Seoul – the good, the bad & the ugly

My expectations of Seoul were gigantic. Unfortunately, the city only partially lived up to these expectations.

Seoul has a lot to offer. The city has many sights, good restaurants, nightlife, a good infrastructure and more. Nevertheless, the city didn’t excite me as much as I would have expected. There are several reasons for this.

In general, I imagined Seoul to be different. Maybe I really had the image of Tokyo in mind, which Seoul doesn’t do justice to in any way. Seoul has considerably fewer skyscrapers. Plus, you find hardly any quarter that appears in bright neon light. Gangnam is the only exception.

On the one hand, I didn’t find the quarters in Seoul as vibrant and interesting as in other big Asian cities. A quarter in Seoul is in many cases only a main street and some minor side streets. I always had the impression that it went very fast until we had seen the quarter and its interesting things.

On the other hand, Seoul is also exhausting. The distances in the city are huge and it often takes 45-60 minutes to get from one place to another by subway. You are not necessarily faster by car in the congested streets, but you pay twenty times more than by subway. However, we occasionally took an Uber or a taxi anyway. Since we spent about two hours a day in the subway, we were sometimes tired of being constantly underground.

Another problem we had was with restaurants. In some cases they were already closed at 9 PM when we arrived. Sometimes we simply did not find it. I’ve already written that Google Maps doesn’t work. This caused some annoyances sometimes. Google Maps found the location and displayed it on the map, but we couldn’t find it anyway. So we sometimes gave up in frustration and went to the next best one.

Last but not least, I missed the vibe and the atmosphere in the city. Seoul isn’t as well-organized as Tokyo and it’s not as chaotic as Bangkok. I find it really hard to characterize the South Korean capital. But even at night I found the city not as interesting as I had imagined. The nightlife in Seoul is good if you look at the quantity of bars or nightclubs alone. But I didn’t experience a really cool atmosphere in any of the places where we had a drink. Even though the places were full, it felt boring in most venues.

However, this sounds harsher as it is. All in all, my stay in Seoul was still good. Objectively seen, Seoul still offers a lot for tourists and you can do many things for days without getting bored. The city was just different than I had expected. I expected that Seoul would become one of my favorite cities. That didn’t happen though.

We would have liked to see the nature around Seoul if we had had more time. The Seoraksan National Park would have been the first choice, because the nature looks beautiful on the pictures. Another popular destination for a day trip is Nami Island, although the pictures of this island didn’t really appeal to me.

But our stay in Seoul did not remain completely without a day trip…

The Demilitarized Zone

South Korea is still officially at war with North Korea, as no peace agreement was signed after the end of the Korean War in 1953. Both countries share centuries of history and culture before they were divided into two countries almost 70 years ago.

The demilitarized zone (DMZ) is the border between the two countries. It is 248km long and 4km wide. This zone is often referred to as the most tense place on earth. After all, it’s nothing more than the best guarded border in the world. Since we later went to North Korea on this trip and the visit of the DMZ was part of the program, we wanted to see the DMZ first from the south.

The price for an eight-hour tour was not really a bargain compared to the prices we paid in Taiwan. The tour cost 92 dollars. There is also the possibility to do a half day tour for 46 dollars. But then you miss the Joint Security Area, in my opinion the absolute highlight of this tour. More about that later…

Before the start of the tour we were informed by the provider which rules we had to follow. Special attention has to be paid to clothing, which should not be too informal. For example, you are not allowed to join the tour wearing shorts or open shoes. Jeans are okay as long as they have no holes. Allegedly, the North Koreans use pictures of tourists with shreds in their trousers for propaganda purposes. They show these pictures on television with the statement that foreign countries are so poor that one cannot even afford trousers without holes there.

When we arrived shortly before 8 AM at the meeting point in Seoul, we first had to sign a piece of paper. The paper said that the tour operator will not be responsible in case of our death. I don’t remember ever signing such an agreement anywhere else. Although the probability that anything could happen is practically zero, incidents occur from time to time. The most dramatic incident happened two years ago when a North Korean soldier tried to flee to the south. Virtually the entire escape has been recorded by cameras and is available on Youtube.

However, the number of possible candidates from our group who wanted to flee to North Korea was small. We were about 30 people in a bus and the journey took approximately one hour. The first stop was the Dora observatory, a viewing platform where you can look to the north with binoculars.

Although fog prevented a good view, we could still see a lot. For example the fake village on the North Korean side. After the Korean War, the North Koreans built this village in order to attract South Koreans. Apparently, they thought the South Koreans were “oh, how nice. That’s where I want to live”. Some of the houses don’t have real windows but painted ones. In other higher houses there are neither floors nor walls inside. Rumor says that the houses are partly inhabited by North Korean soldiers.

From the Dora Observatory we went on to the Joint Security Area (JSA). This is the place where soldiers from both countries (and American soldiers) are only a few meters apart. First we watched an information film in the JSA visitor center. Afterwards our South Korean guide told us that US soldiers will lead our group for the next hour.

The two young US soldiers were actually quite cool guys. They briefly explained to us the rules for the Joint Security Area. In particular, they told us several times that we would see North Koreans on the other side making gestures in our direction. The soldiers clearly told us not to react to these gestures. Again, it seems that the North Koreans are using the reactions on the other side for propaganda purposes.

What followed was a very bizarre moment. We entered the area where the well-known blue houses stand, in the middle of which is the border between North Korea and South Korea. In the video below you can see the seconds before we went outside. In the background you can see the North Koreans.

And then we went outside. About a hundred meters away from us was the same number of people from North Korea. Some of them waved over to us. As we were dictated, we did not react to it, but simply stared back. The US soldiers claimed that the people on the other side were North Korean tourists. When I did the tour a week later from the north, I found out that this claim was not true…

These two minutes were not only the most bizarre during the whole trip but also one of the most memorable travel moments I ever had. It felt so strange. You just stand there, look at the other side and see people who do the exact same thing. In the middle, there are soldiers protecting the border. It’s a very surreal experience.

Afterwards we went into the blue houses, where we stood on one side officially on North Korean territory. The Guinness Book of Records even considers the five-minute stay on one side of the room as a visit to the country, which is among the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

The last stop was the third tunnel. The North Koreans built several kilometers of tunnels from north to south that should reach as far as Seoul. They planned to send thousands of soldiers through the tunnels into enemy territory. Some of the tunnels were even big enough for artillery.

North Korean deserters informed the south of these plans so that the South Koreans could find four of these tunnels and take them away from the enemy. However, it is unclear how many more tunnels still exist. One of the tunnels can be entered. Unfortunately, it was not allowed to take photos here (we even had to leave all objects in lockers at the entrance). Also an impressive sight.

That was the last part of the DMZ/JSA tour, a fantastic tour but also surreal. It’s weird to see how a country is separated like that. For me personally this tour was the highlight in South Korea.

South Korea as a travel destination

In recent years I have stopped reading too much about the destinations I travel to before the trip. For example, I hardly read travel guides or travelogues any more. Of course, I find out what the places have to offer and ask about suggestions, but I still try to avoid other people’ opinions as much as possible in order to be unbiased. With South Korea this may have turned out to be a mistake. Because I didn’t manage to stop the constant comparison with Japan.

That is problematic because the countries are not even slightly similar and share a quite violent history with each other. Nevertheless, I thought in several situations I liked something better in Japan. If I had informed myself better in advance, it would have become clear to me that South Korea is not comparable with Japan and Seoul also not with Tokyo. But if you have in your ears for years the sentence of the Dutchman that I mentioned at the beginning of the text, it is difficult not to compare the two places.

The result was that South Korea could not fully meet my expectations. My original plan was to enjoy the capital for five days in a first visit and then see the rest of the country in a few years. I have now said goodbye to this idea and I am not particularly interested in traveling to South Korea again to see other places. I have already informed myself before this trip whether it would be worthwhile to visit other cities. Outside of Seoul, however, I saw nothing that would justify an additional trip in the near future.

The exception is Jeju Island. An idea we had was to shorten Taiwan by two days and spend those days on Jeju Island. In hindsight, that would have been the better decision. After five days in Taipei and Seoul we were tired of big cities, and Beijing was still ahead of us… Jeju Island would have been a good alternative and this island is also the only reason for me to travel again to South Korea.

All in all, I can still recommend South Korea as a travel destination. The country is an easy travel destination with good infrastructure and not too high price levels. Moreover, South Korea is by far the most westernized country in East Asia. If you add Southeast Asia, South Korea would take second place after Singapore, but then nothing comes for a long time.

A few days in Seoul can be fun, Jeju Island is worth it, I guess, and a trip to the Seoraksan National Park also sounds like a good idea. It is just important to know in advance that South Korea is not like Japan. Otherwise you might be a bit disappointed like me.

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Find the travel reports of the other countries I’ve visited here!