3 things you have to do in Seoul

K-beauty.

K-pop.

Baby Shark.

Those are just a few of the reasons I wanted to visit Seoul with my family. While my little lady was excited at the prospect of lots of bingsu (shaved ice treats), my husband was a bit more hesitant since his ideal vacation revolves around a beach. But everyone had a great time in our last minute trip to the Korean capital. We had hand cut noodles and wandered around ancient palace grounds. It is certainly a cosmopolitan city with towering office buildings and beautiful shopping malls. But it is wonderful to see its beautiful and sometimes

3 things you have to do in Seoul

Eat traditional food like mandu

Sure you may have had Korean BBQ (nothing like a good kalbi!) But why not try mandu – Korean dumplings? I have had mandu for many years and the typical vegetable pork mixture in a thin dough wrapper is comfort food for me. It was lovely to see it everywhere and we even bought frozen ones for a quick breakfast for our little ones (yay for kitchens while traveling!) Mandu can come in different forms and the fillings range from the aforementioned pork vegetable to seafood. I saw beautiful ones at the basement level of Lotte department store.

I also saw a wonderful food street with different Korean grandma figures wrapping fresh mandu at various stalls bear Gwangjang Market.

Myeongdeong Kyoja is a Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant which counts lovely steamed mandu and mandu in a delicate broth for its kalgaksu as two of its four signature dishes (the other two are noodle dishes). It was an efficient, brisk restaurant with delicious food.

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Shop for K-beauty

K-beauty has become one of the highest standards for makeup and skincare products. It’s all about dewy, youthful, or even glass skin so the masks, essences, BB creams, and night sleeping masks all contribute towards creating this powerless, smooth look.

I was looking for specific brands after getting suggestions from Lena and Rowena (Huxley and Vitabrid were on the top of my list). But I also just wanted to see these beauty stores up close.

Note the major channels for buying K-beauty:

1.Myeongdong Street

So I headed towards the famous Myeongdong street which has multiple stores from multi-brand stores to large company outlets (some within a few blocks of each other!).

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Myeondeong Street itself has larger brands like Etude Beauty, Nature Republic and InnisFree (which even has its own cafe!) Head nearby to the Lotte Duty free store (9th-12th floors) to snatch up both beauty and luxury goods. We only did a quick walk by since the kids were in tow. But go early, with passport in tow, and save duties on anything you’d be interested in getting. I’ll stop by next time to pick up some Sulwahsoo cleanser!

2.Online

Note also that some beauty brands do not have stores. Unfortunately both Huxley and Vitabrid products could only be purchased online. Some smaller brands could be available at multi-brand stores, but will likely not be at the airport.

3. Incheon airport

Incheon has an abundance of duty free stores. The array of brands being sold is almost dizzying. Different stores are also managed by different companies so the brands may vary slightly. Definitely look at a few different stores if you are searching for something specific.

4. Visit Olive Young

Olive Young is a health and beauty juggernaut with multiple outlets throughout Korea. We passed by quite a few, but I only had time to shop at the smaller one that was just down the road from where we stayed. This store is a mix of your best drugstore beauty finds with Sephora. They have really interesting organization and are organized by the type of care you seek – e.g. acne care, foot care, hair care, etc. I was lucky enough to snag a few things I had been eyeing on Amazon anyway.

Visit a palace

I didn’t realize that there are 5 gorgeous palaces located in Seoul (well 4 beautiful palaces and one major shrine). They are: Gyeongbokgung Palace, Changdeokgung Palace, Changgyeonggung Palace and Deoksugung Palace, as well as Jongmyo Shrine. These palaces all hail from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897) and served as either main or secondary residences for rulers at different times. We visited Gyeongbokgung Palace (the largest) and Changdeokgung Palace (the prettiest). Gyeongbokgung Palace is certainly impressive and we barely covered it this time due to the heat, but would visit the grounds again. It does get very crowded though so arrive early. It’s great to cool off in the air conditioned National Palace Museum at the side of the entrance too.

We also only got to see a bit of Changdeokgung Palace – a UNESCO world heritage site – due to the weather again. It was pouring but we made the most of it. This palace is the most well preserved one and also considered the lovelies due to its incorporation of nature motifs in its decor. The broad use of green and floral details are abundant.

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