Seoul in a Day
Or, How to Walk 15 Miles and Miss Half a City
Hello my friends, welcome back to the FC Newsletter. The beginning of 2025 has been absolutely insane for me, in a distinctly negative way. I’ve spent the last ~4 weeks working 70-100 hours a week, fielding my normal engineering work and then providing around-the-clock troubleshooting support for a project in South Korea that went off the rails.
This culminated in me being sent over to Seoul on 3 days notice. We sat down on Monday morning and had a solution within 15 minutes. A classic case of incompetence and poor communication getting blamed on the vendor.
As lame as it is to have to listen to PMC corpospeak about maximizing interdepartmental synergistics or whatever, it’s crazy to watch what happens when two groups are completely incapable of it. These people were physically sitting next to each other (!!!) and couldn’t be bothered to collaborate on fixing what turned out to be them trying to do something that was obviously physically impossible.
I’m going to try to keep this article cheery because Seoul is a really cool city, but truthfully, I’m completely burnt out and pretty bitter over this experience, so apologies if that seeps in here and there.
As an aside, I’m completely fading other professionals who brag about regularly work 80 hours a week. This is a completely unsustainable way to live, and you’re either a) sitting around with your thumb up your butt but need to have on-site presence (e.g., investment bankers) or b) just straight-up lying because you’ve attached “grinding hard“ to self-worth.
Anyway, let’s get to it.
I had one full day left before my return trip, so I plotted out an itinerary as best I could on such short notice. I came up with roughly the following (only limited to 5 stops on Naver Maps, which I had to use in place of Google, since they don’t offer walking coverage for Korea), which works out to roughly 13 miles of walking:
In an ideal situation, you’d probably want 3 full days to explore around Seoul. One day really isn’t enough for a city so jam-packed with things to do and see. Also for any city you go to, provided it’s reasonably safe to do so, I think it’s best to walk everywhere. You really miss out on the vibe of a place if you just uber from touchpoint to touchpoint. Take a stroll and immerse yourself!
I tried to hit a combination of normal touristy things and some culture stuff and shopping, but really I missed a ton, including entire districts like Itaewon, which I would have liked to see.
I will say though, shopping in Seoul is a great idea — the South Korean Won is currently really weak against the US dollar, so you get a ton of bang for your buck. Obviously this isn’t great for Koreans, but it means that to you as a foreigner, everything is basically ~30% off, when you factor in the tax-free thing that they do for tourists.
Gyeongbokgung Palace
This is where I started my day — it’s a giant traditional palace in the downtown area. Definitely worth a look around — tons of people in traditional garb and whatnot. I think it was a 4 won entry fee, which is like $1.5.
The palace itself was built in the 1300s by the Joseon Dynasty. The palace itself has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times over the years, most notably by Imperial Japan during their occupation of Korea from ~1910 until the end of World War II.
The palace was recently designated as a cultural site and is in the process of being restored to its former glory. Definitely worth it just to see.
Downtown Area
I was mostly just passing through here, but still some nice sights, including what is in my opinion, the most beautiful Starbucks I’ve ever seen:
Of note, I found the juxtaposition of the various Christian churches with bright, cheery anime advertisements to be kind of funny.
Also, if you’re into stationery, there’s a really neat store called HOTTRACKS downtown that has some really cool options, including these soyjak plushies. Kind of regret not buying one..
Seoul Tower
[point 1 on our map]
There’s an awesome park smack-dab in the middle of the city called Namsan Mountain park. True to its name, it’s a small mountain (more of a hill) with a pretty spacious parkland around it. If you’re coming from the North side like I did, the ascent will be mostly stairs up to the peak, and the descent will just be a nice, sloping road.
The mountain offers some pretty great panoramic views of the city. You can also opt to go up to the top of Seoul Tower for even better views, but I skipped that. I think you can get everything you need from the base.
Leeum Museum
[point 2 on our map]
I could probably do an entire piece on this place alone. I figured I should go to at least one museum, and really only chose this one since it was already on the route that I had established. I’m really glad I did though. What an incredible space!
Even outside of the pieces they had on display, which ranged from ancient Korean celadon to a collection by postmodern artist Pierre Huyghe. The space itself is such a work of art that it almost pulls you away from some of the serious pieces they have there. I had to be quick, but would like to have spent a few more hours trying to ingest this place.
This was also my first opportunity to see a Rothko in-person. I hate to say it, but the annoying art people are right, you really do have to observe them in real life. What makes these paintings special is completely lost in photographs.
I’d even venture to say that these paintings are a great litmus test for pseudo-intellectualism in both directions. There’s so much performative love and hate for his works, transmogrifying what is in its essence a basic display of raw emotion into something more than that.
Pierre Huyghe
During my visit, Leeum was running postmodern artist Pierre Huyghe’s installation Liminal. This was a pretty interesting, pretty weird, ambient display.
I won’t pretend like I got what he was going for, but the artist was really good at depicting what I would describe as despair. I don’t think it works without Leeum’s architecture however.
The exhibition opens with something called the black box, a pitch-black room that gradually unfurls into the individual installations themselves. Huyghe is apparently known for his aquarium art, of which there was plenty.
The centerpiece of the exhibit was this haunting (isolating? devastating?) video called Human Mask (below in its entirety). Again, this was shown in an otherwise pitch-black room, which I think really added to the overall gravity of the video — I’m not sure it’ll work so well in YouTube form
The work itself seems to be inspired by this really fucking weird old video of a monkey in a mask that works at a restaurant in Fukushima. The original video is arguably more disturbing than Huyghe’s rendition, but he manages to distill it into something a little more depersonalizing.
Garosu-Gil Street
[points 3-4 on map]
After the museum I crossed the bridge over into Gangnam, with the aim of finding Garosu-Gil. I didn’t know much about this area beyond it being a shopping district, but I recognized a few names (Ralph’s Coffee/Polo, Le Labo, Patagonia, etc.).
My main interest in coming here was to go to the Patagonia store (of all places!). I enjoy collecting their location-exclusive t-shirts. I was dismayed to find out that they don’t actually make one for Seoul/South Korea, sadly.
I also went hunting for the city-exclusive scent from Le Labo, Citron 28, which I was frankly disappointed by. It kind of just smells like a diluted lemon pledge. I don’t have the strongest nose so maybe I’m missing something, but if I smelt someone wearing this, I would just assume that they recently finished up some housework or something.
Honestly the whole area was kind of lame, I would skip.
Dosan
[point 5 on the map]
From Garosu-Gil, I walked a few blocks over to Dosan. This area was much livelier and seemed to include some flagship store locations. Upon arriving, I saw some fashion bros “chopping it up“ in the middle of the street. One fit stuck out to me as excellent: Red watchcap, blue retro puffer vest, light-wash denim, and Alden Indys (Indies?). Fitted tf out honestly.
Here I was surprised to find a Drake’s flagship store. The employee inside, JK, was the absolute governor. Really cool dude and really accommodating. Used to work at their store in Manhattan too. JK also affirmed my suspicions about Garosu-Gil, calling it out-of-date.
I tried on a few of their oxfords and was surprised to find that I actually didn’t like them all that much. I think at that price point (~$220), you’re better off going the custom route.
From there, JK pointed me to a store called Random Walk, named for the book A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
This place was like menswear heaven. They had every popular brand that you’ve seen floating around on your explore page: Arpenteur (their mod. 1 sunglasses are killer), orSlow, J.M. Weston, Rocky Mountain Featherbed, etc. Really great, tightly-curated store. Probably my #1 recommendation if you go to Seoul for the purpose of shopping. Also remember that things are ~30% cheaper, so there’s hella deals to be had.
On Rocky Mountain Featherbed: This brand looks so great on Instagram, but I was thoroughly unimpressed in-person. The leather western yokes are cool, but the jackets and vests feel flimsy and overstuffed. Again, they look great from the front, but the side profile combined with the cropped fit of the jackets is comical.
From Random Walk, I headed over to the Noah Cityhouse.
The cityhouse is a nice little curated collection with an integrated cafe called Waterman’s Cafe. Lots of people just hanging out and chilling downstairs. I think I was the only one shopping around in any capacity.
I was really surprised to find that they had quite a few of their recent casentino wool Barbour jackets still in stock. Looks like I was slightly too early for their newest Spey jacket release.
My last stop in Dosan was Gentle Monster Haus. I’ve never heard of this brand, but it seems like it’s crazy popular in Korea and Japan (and I guess everywhere else, they have nearly 2 million Instagram followers).
Their Haus store is kind of an “experimental“ space I guess. Less focus on the product, and more on whatever vibe that they were trying to curate, which was lost on me if I’m being honest:
Also peep the Tekken shades:
Seongsu
From Dosan, it was time to make the trek to my final destination of the day, Seongsu. Kind of a harrowing trip along the side of a highway, but it made for some great views of the Han river. Walked along the Seongsu Bridge to Seoul Forest, before making a right turn. Unfortunately, Seoul Forest made for a bit of a depressing sight in the late Winter.
I arrived at Seongsu right around 7pm, having completed a full half-marathon (walking, of course) to get there. This place was absolutely bumping. The streets were overflowing with people, and every store seemed like it was packed. Pretty good for a random Thursday I imagine.
This is the area I wish I had spent more time in. Very dynamic, lots to do, lots to see. Lots of flagship stores as well.
If you’re into stationery, the hidden gem here is Point of View. A really cool 3-story building solely dedicated to paper and pens.
Beyond that, I managed to slip into the New Balance Flagship store, which was also incredible — it included a fully custom “souvenir shop,“ where you can basically create your own shirt which they’ll screen print in the store while you shop around. I kinda balled out here tbh
Thus concludes my trip through Seoul. ~13 miles across the city in 10 hours. There’s way too much to see in this city. I didn’t even mention (or explore really) the mega malls that are on basically every corner. If you do go here as a tourist, make sure you budget at least a few days so that you can properly digest the city. It’s a really great and unique place.
Further Cultural Observations
-Do Not Go Here If You Have Celiac Disease
If you’re an avid reader of this lovely little newsletter, you might remember that I have celiac disease. This makes any international travel, even to other English-speaking countries, a pain in the ass and I generally need to plan out where I need to eat in advance.
You also might have noticed that I didn’t reference food once in this newsletter. That’s because Korea might be the single worst country on the planet for celiac disease and I just straight up didn’t eat during my trip around Seoul. I survived on Pocari Sweat only, and then ate once I got back to my hotel.
In general, celiac disease is a completely foreign concept to East Asians, and they genuinely have no idea what does or does not contain wheat (I previously lived in China for ~4 months and explaining this was a harrowing experience). Anyway, there’s wheat in both soy sauce and gochujang sauce (most Asian sauces to be honest), so good luck if you choose to go anyway.
-Discovery Expedition
This seems to be exclusive to South Korea, but the Discovery Channel has a fashion line that is huge there. Outside of the North Face and New Balance, it was probably the brand that I encountered most often there. Very curious.
-MLB is huge
Everyone is a Dodgers or Yankees fan though 👎🏻
-Olive Young
Olive Young is THE Korean skin care store. I stocked up on a bunch of stuff for my wife and Mom (it’s her birthday in a couple days, HB Mom). Basically just go in and grab whatever. Their in-house brand of pimple patches are apparently the best on the market. Your girl will love you for this one lol.
-Every Car is a Kia or Hyundai
It’s uncanny actually. They were probably 90% of the cars I encountered, with the occasional Porsche SUV or BMW. The uniformity is insane. Also, everyone backs into their parking spots, also in a really uniform manner. Also very curious..
-Christianity is Huge
I like kind of knew this, but was still surprised to see it all over the place. We do have Korea to thank for Gigachad Jesus though, so I shouldn’t be too surprised:
-Pollution
About half of the days I was there, I would wake up to the world covered in an unsettling haze. It turns out that Korea gets hit with a ton of pollution from China, as well as something called “Asian dust“. Pretty ominous if you ask me.
Anyway, I would be soooooo pissed off if some other country was constantly polluting my air. That would suck so bad
-Babies and Young Kids Very Visible in Public
All you really hear about Korea is how they have a total fertility rate that is so low (0.55) that they’ll be extinct within like 3 generations or something… Despite that, I found that a lot of parents incorporated their kids into their lives pretty seamlessly. Contrast this with the US where parents have their children in public as little as possible.
-Deer Look Kinda Funny
That’s about all I have for you. Seoul is a really neat city.
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