There is so much to see and do in Seoul that I wasn’t sure where to start this page. I’ve visited the city multiple times, with nearly fifteen years separating some of my trips, and each visit showed me another side of it.
On my most recent trip, some of my favorite experiences came from neighborhoods and attractions I discovered completely by accident. A perfect example is the LED rose garden above. I had no idea it existed until I stumbled across it while walking through Seoul one night.
It was actually the enormous futuristic building nearby that first caught my attention. This is Dongdaemun Design Plaza, usually shortened to DDP. It opened in 2014 and hosts exhibitions, fashion events, shops and other cultural activities.
The building was designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, whose flowing curves give it a completely different appearance from almost anything surrounding it.
One of the most interesting things about DDP is the contrast between the futuristic architecture and the archaeological remains preserved around it. During redevelopment of the former Dongdaemun Stadium area, excavations uncovered remains connected with Seoul’s Joseon-era defenses and other historic structures.
Rather than simply covering everything over, parts of the archaeological site were incorporated into the surrounding park. Standing beside centuries-old remains while an enormous Zaha Hadid building curved overhead was one of those combinations that made Seoul so interesting to me.
Another place I’ve visited more than once is Gyeongbokgung Palace. Built in 1395, it became the principal royal palace of the Joseon dynasty and remains one of Seoul’s most important historic sites.
The palace suffered repeated destruction over the centuries. Large sections were burned during the Japanese invasions of Korea in the late sixteenth century, rebuilt much later, and then many structures were demolished again during the Japanese colonial period. Restoration has continued for decades.
The massive gate photographed above is Gwanghwamun, the principal entrance to the palace.
One of my favorite parts of visiting Gyeongbokgung is the royal guard ceremony. The guards wear uniforms inspired by those of the Joseon period and stand outside the palace gates while visitors photograph them.
When I first saw them, I compared them with the military guards I had encountered elsewhere. I spent five years in the Marines, where standing guard meant staring straight ahead and maintaining strict bearing. These guys occasionally moved their eyes around, which caught my attention.
Of course, this is a historical reenactment rather than an active military security detail, so my Marine Corps standards probably weren’t particularly relevant!
The ceremony includes guards, musicians and elaborate traditional uniforms. It only lasts a short time, but it’s one of the easiest ways to add a little living history to a visit to the palace.
After the ceremony I continued exploring the palace grounds. The building above is Geunjeongjeon, the main throne hall, where important state ceremonies and royal events were held.
One mistake I made was never returning for one of the palace’s nighttime openings. Photographs I’ve seen of the illuminated buildings make me wish I had planned my visit differently.
For years I assumed this enormous building beside Gyeongbokgung was another historic palace structure. It isn’t.
This is the National Folk Museum of Korea. The institution’s roots date to 1945, when a National Museum of Ethnology was established under the U.S. military government following Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule. The museum went through several reorganizations over the following decades and moved into its present building in 1993.
The exhibits explore Korean daily life, traditions, customs and material culture rather than simply royal history.
I remembered these animal statues from my first visit years earlier, and when I returned they were still exactly where I remembered them. The twelve animals represent the traditional East Asian zodiac cycle.
I had seen much larger versions of the same animals in Gyeongju, so these somehow looked smaller when I returned to Seoul.
The outdoor exhibits include reconstructed buildings and displays showing different aspects of Korean life and architecture. I didn’t do a particularly good job photographing them, but wandering through the outdoor section made a nice complement to the museum galleries inside.
One thing I had hoped to see elsewhere in Korea was a region known for traditional wooden carvings. I never made the trip, so finding examples here at least gave me a small taste of what I had missed.
The museum also contained artwork and historical documents showing everyday Korean life.
Some older Korean texts used Chinese characters, known in Korea as hanja. During the fifteenth century, King Sejong supported the creation of Hangul, a new phonetic writing system designed to make literacy much easier for ordinary Koreans. Hangul remains one of Korea’s most important cultural achievements.
One of Seoul’s most recognizable modern landmarks is N Seoul Tower, rising from the top of Namsan Mountain. The tower was constructed as a broadcasting facility during South Korea’s rapid modernization and later opened to the public as an observation tower.
Probably one of the biggest mistakes I made on this trip was never actually going up it. I fully intended to, but Seoul kept distracting me with other places to explore.
Next time.
Seoul’s transformation during the second half of the twentieth century was extraordinary. Today modern architecture and high-rise buildings stretch across an enormous metropolitan area.
These buildings caught my attention because their forms reminded me of giant tree trunks.
I saw this next building while walking elsewhere in Seoul. Someone later told me it looked like a Sandcrawler from Star Wars, and once they said it I couldn’t unsee it.
One famous district I never connected with as much as I expected was Gangnam. It’s associated with wealth, expensive real estate, shopping, restaurants, nightlife and South Korea’s highly competitive education culture.
As a traveler, though, I didn’t find the neighborhood itself as interesting as some of the places I stumbled into elsewhere. What stood out most to me was the modern architecture.
South Korea is also internationally known for its beauty and cosmetic industries. Gangnam in particular contains a huge concentration of cosmetic clinics, while shops throughout Seoul sell everything from skincare products to colored contact lenses like these.
On my final days in Seoul I stayed in a small apartment rather than a hotel, which put me in a neighborhood I probably never would have visited otherwise.
The apartment gave me a glimpse of high-density city living. The photograph above shows almost the entire place. The washing machine, kitchen, small table and bed were all packed into one room, with only the bathroom near the entrance outside the frame.
Small, but cozy.
I never figured out the name of this neighborhood, but I enjoyed wandering through it much more than Gangnam. It had fewer major chains and plenty of small stores, outdoor vendors and street food.
Places like this were probably my favorite part of Seoul because I hadn’t gone there expecting to see anything.
I tried Korean barbecue from a street vendor and immediately understood why it was so popular. It was also freezing outside, so any heat source became my best friend.
I stopped beside fires like this whenever I got the chance.
Tea shops offered another escape from the cold. I came across this one selling tea at prices that seemed completely insane to me, including some approaching $1,000.
I decided regular tea would be just fine.
And of course there were coffee shops and bakeries everywhere. Korea seems to have an incredible number of both, often with several competing businesses within a few doors of one another.
Here’s another neighborhood I simply wandered into at night. I don’t remember exactly where I was, but it was one of the liveliest areas I visited.
The fact that I kept accidentally finding neighborhoods like this probably says more about Seoul than any list of attractions could. The city is enormous, and there always seemed to be another busy district somewhere beyond the one I had just explored.
I came across this building during another random walk. It looked like a former church that had been converted into an art space, but it was closed and I never managed to confidently identify it afterward.
Rather than guess, I’ll just leave it as another Seoul mystery for my next visit.
Korean cuisine has a huge amount of variety, although seafood was never my favorite part of it. Throughout Seoul and other Korean cities I regularly passed restaurants with tanks full of crabs, fish, eels, squid and other live seafood.
This giant crab wasn’t exactly making me hungry.
Korean barbecue was much more my style. Many restaurants have grills built directly into the table so meat and vegetables can be cooked right in front of you.
The exhaust ducts hanging from the ceiling help pull smoke away from the tables, and some restaurants even provide bags or containers for your coat so you don’t leave smelling like dinner.
One of Seoul’s most internationally oriented neighborhoods is Itaewon. Restaurants serve food from around the world, while bars, clubs and shops have historically attracted both Koreans and foreigners.
After eating Korean food throughout much of the trip, naturally I came to Itaewon and ended up at a Mexican restaurant followed by ice cream.
My most recent visit came during a particularly tense period on the Korean Peninsula. In 2017, North Korea carried out its first tests of missiles widely assessed as intercontinental ballistic missiles, while rhetoric between North Korea and the United States escalated dramatically.
What surprised me was how differently many people in Seoul reacted compared with the international news coverage I had been watching. Most South Koreans I spoke with seemed considerably less alarmed. They had lived with threats from the North for their entire lives and often treated the latest crisis as another chapter in a familiar situation.
I also encountered public displays supporting the United States and the South Korea–U.S. alliance, including the signs photographed here.
I’ll finish my Seoul page with a place I made a point of revisiting: the War Memorial of Korea. For anyone interested in Korean history, I think it’s one of the most worthwhile museums in the city. Admission to the main museum is free, and the exhibits cover Korean military history from ancient conflicts through the Korean War and the modern era. The museum remains free today. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
The monument above is the Statue of Brothers. It represents the tragedy of a peninsula divided against itself, showing two brothers serving on opposite sides of the Korean War embracing on the battlefield.
The symbolism is especially powerful because the division of Korea separated countless families. Korea had been divided into Soviet and American occupation zones after Japan’s surrender in 1945, and separate governments emerged in North and South Korea in 1948. When war began in 1950, families that had once lived in the same country could find themselves trapped on opposite sides of the conflict.
This is another monument on the grounds. I was trying to take an HDR photograph and got lazy enough to use the stairs instead of pulling out my tripod, so the angle ended up a little crooked.
Even when the indoor galleries are closed, there is a substantial outdoor collection of military equipment. I remembered photographing some of the same displays during my earlier trip almost fifteen years before.
My main interest was the Korean War, but the museum covers conflicts stretching much farther back in Korean history.
One of the most famous examples is the turtle ship, or geobukseon. Korean records mention earlier forms of turtle ships during the Joseon period, but the vessels are most famously associated with Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s naval campaigns against Japanese forces during the invasions of the 1590s.
The ships used a covered upper deck that helped protect the crew, and their unusual design became one of the most famous symbols of Korean naval history. The exact construction of historical turtle ships remains debated because no original vessel survives.
The museum is enormous, so there’s no way I could represent everything here. I concentrated mostly on the Korean War because it was the part of Korean history I wanted to understand better.
In the United States, the Korean War is sometimes called the “Forgotten War,” overshadowed in popular memory by World War II and Vietnam. On the Korean Peninsula, obviously, there was nothing forgettable about it.
These photographs showed American troops during the war, including soldiers celebrating New Year’s in 1952 and an injured serviceman below.
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when North Korean forces invaded South Korea. The North rapidly pushed South Korean and United Nations forces into a small defensive area around Busan before the amphibious landing at Incheon helped reverse the war.
UN and South Korean forces advanced far into North Korea, but Chinese intervention drove them south again. Seoul changed hands several times before the front eventually stabilized near where the modern border remains today.
Fighting ended with an armistice on July 27, 1953, not a peace treaty. The Demilitarized Zone follows the final battle line and lies roughly around the old 38th-parallel division rather than exactly following it.
The human cost was enormous. Millions of soldiers and civilians were killed, wounded or displaced, and families remained divided for generations.
The memorial above was one of the displays that stayed with me most. Thousands of military identification tags are used to symbolize the individuals lost during the conflict. After walking through room after room of maps, weapons and military equipment, seeing individual names brought the scale of the war back down to actual people.
More on South Korea
Explore Gyeongju
Explore Naejangsan
More on East Asia
Explore North Korea
Explore China
Explore Japan
