Gyeongju and Seoul, South Korea

If for some reason the only impression of me you have is from my travels and writing over the years…I’m sorry I misled you. You probably think I’m some intrepid guy with some level of pretention who seeks the obscure. “You’ve been there? Oh yeah? Back in my day, no one knew about it, I had to hitchhike three days…” You’d probably think I’m the type to go to North Korea instead. (I know many who have. For me, ehhh… but never say never?)

Maybe that was a little… too revealing of my inner ego. Sorry. But I digress. At heart, I am also your typical admirer of fancy coffee, voracious observer of pop culture, and sucker for social media-friendly local businesses and hotspots.

Which leads me to South Korea.

This is a long overdue visit I’ve put off out of sheer convenience: it’s an easy flight from Vancouver, and an easy destination that’s highly developed. But a family trip leading me back to Asia for the first time in 8 years felt like the perfect opportunity to meld my interests with my parents’ level of comfort… and their interests too!

Living in Vancouver, we’ve long been well-acquainted with Korean culture, given the large diaspora presence. Prominent K-dramas dubbed into Chinese made their way into our lives in my teenage years, long before k-pop fully took over the world. Korean restaurants and cafes are everywhere, serving up dishes and atmospheres that have now become regular go-tos, and we’ve got entire neighbourhoods feeling like new Korea towns.

So on arrival in Seoul en route to Gyeongju on our first evening, without “surfacing,” we hit up the train station food court. The options were delicious, overwhelming… and familiar, as was even the language barrier. I even remarked that I felt like we were in still in Coquitlam.

But waking up hundreds of kilometres away in Gyeongju the next morning, sleeping on the floor of a hanok (traditional home), sliding the door open to the courtyard outside… then walking out the gate to streets full of residential hanoks? That’s something you can’t get outside of Korea, no matter how Korean the neighbourhood.

Gyeongju is also a city for Korean history buffs, and being internationally showcased this month as the site of the 2025 APEC summit. It’s the capital of the former Shilla Kingdom, the one which ultimately won out over the Baekje and Goguryeo kingdoms and unified the peninsula into one state for the first time, all the way back in the 7th century. As someone who isn’t a Korean history buff, I probably should have read up on that before visiting, rather than learning in a museum in Seoul days later.

But it means that Gyeongju is full of sights significant to Korean culture, given its status as the proto-predecessor. It also means that it’s super crowded during the largest national holiday of the year: Chuseok, their Mid-Autumn Festival. Oops.

At the Bulguksa Temple, located past dozens of rice fields outside of town and first built in the 6th century, those crowds braved the rain to climb up and down the stone stairs, hang their wishes on lanterns, and send quick prayers to the Buddhas housed in various ancient halls. Closer to town, there’s some green hills that jut straight up out of the ground, looking to the untrained eye like the Teletubbies background set. With the holidays, the crowds showed up some more to line up to enter one of them: it’s a royal tomb, like the rest of them in the Daereungwon Complex. They’re accompanied by an ancient observatory tower and the ruins of the Donggung Palace. While harder to appreciate in dreary weather, they light up beautifully and attract even more people at night, along with the gorgeous Woljeonggyo Bridge, reflected on the river.

And right in the centre of town is Hwangridan-gil, a bustling street of endless street food options, beautiful aesthetic cafes, shops, arty things, artisanal coffee, tarot readers, bakeries serving Gyeongju bread through their windows, (pastry stuffed with red bean), restaurants of all sorts… almost all housed in beautiful hanok buildings, with zero high rises in sight. It’s a mystery how sustainable they are in a normally sleepy town like Gyeongju, but during this holiday, the crowds provided a wonderfully joyous atmosphere, packing even the many surrounding alleys filled with normally hidden gems, now fully appreciated.

For my parents, having once visited Seoul and having the megacity showcased through a Chinese bus tour as their only frame of reference for the country, Gyeongju alone completely upended their expectations of the trip. (Mission accomplished!) I know how much they typically hate rain or large amounts of walking, and despite no time to ease in from the intercontinental flight, their wide-eyes at the colours, the architecture, and — most of all — enticing menus on every corner gave me energy, too, and we walked everywhere. We left Gyeongju after just a day and a half, with them buzzing about returning in the future.

So the true test came on our return — and my first visit — to Seoul. With five whole days as a return visit, they thought it’d be too much. In the end, time completely spent to the fullest, we all left wanting even more.

I feel like at this point, Seoul needs no introduction. Why? You don’t even need to walk anywhere to get an answer, one example hits your ears when arrive: “up, up, up” currently blares from speaker after speaker after speaker. Against all odds, Korea’s never had this much cultural cachet. A k-pop song has been number one around the world for weeks, coming from a movie distributed by a non-Korean platform. Overcoming language barriers globally in a manner long usually reserved for only English, k-pop, k-dramas, and Korean movies have never been more popular, but Korean products join them too: beauty, electronics, cars — the brands are all household names by now. I’m certain any of you can name at least one of everything, and more if you’ve got an eye on what’s trending.

Seoul is the centre of all of this: giant billboards everywhere, featuring those faces, those products, those brands. The cityscapes and aesthetics have been featured enough that walking around constantly brings a vague feeling of recognition, of seeing something depicted in media instead in front of your eyes. I think of how someone growing up in Europe with American TV and movies might light up when visiting New York for the first time — we’re not there yet, but it feels like Seoul’s on the way there.

Blitzing through three of the Joseon-era (circa 1500 after Shilla and Goryeo, and the last one before the modern variant) royal palaces located in the city on the only sunny day we had, the enthusiasm was visible in a form I’ve never seen before: dressing up in hanbok (traditional clothing) and traipsing around the historical sites for photos. You’d think it’d just be locals doing it for the Chuseok holiday, but there were far more foreigners dressed to the nines: what would typically be considered “cultural appropriation” elsewhere is instead embraced and encouraged by locals. Those outfits seem quite heavy for a hot day! From our long route walking from the Jongmyo Shrine through Changyeonggung, Changdeokgung, and finally Gyeongdeokgung, between the colourfully dressed people everywhere and colourfully decorated and well-reserved building exteriors, my parents could not stop remarking at how it constantly looked like we were in the middle of a historical k-drama set. (Well, they really just mentioned Jewel in the Palace. What a throwback.)

Between the palaces in the hanok-village neighbourhoods of Bukchon and Ikseon: the former a hillside full of traditionally-inspired new residences with the backdrop of new Seoul, the latter a tight quarter full of old hanoks reborn as trendy cafes and boutiques. They’re incredibly cool, blending modern and traditional and stand out from the rest of Seoul.

What does that “rest” look like? There’s surprisingly many sides, and we only had the time to catch the more famous ones. In the centre of town, it’s your requisite skyscrapers, bisected by the Cheonggyecheon Stream, now restored into a lush urban park which just screams “romantic k-drama scene” setting. There’s the busy shopping and night market area of Myeongdong, a sea of street food and lights. There’s also the neon-alley dive bar vibes of the Euljiro neighbourhood we stayed near. In Dongdaemun, aside from the alien spaceship-like design centre and Seoul’s ancient city walls, walk past the malls and you’ll reach those picturesque sidewalk-less one-way streets of low buildings and local wet markets. In Itaewon, it’s all young and hip people, with an excellently tasteful art museum that somehow marries both modern art and 14th century treasures.

Go slightly further afield, skipping the traffic by navigating a spiderweb of a subway map, and you’ll reach the infamous Gangnam. They definitely know they’re infamous. It’s the playground of the new rich, and there’s spectacle for the sake of it just from a quick visit: statues dedicated to the infamy, a library more aesthetic than functional used more as a photo attraction for a mall, a bridge that turns into a fountain every 20 minutes, a large shopping street lit up akin to Singapore’s Orchard Road…

There’s one constant among these disparate neighbourhoods: the ubiquity of good food, and the crowds that come with it. (Not surprising in a city of nearly 10 million!) I had braced myself for this initially. What’s Korean food well-known for back home? Kimchi, gochujang, barbecue, fried chicken… basically spicy and deep friend things, neither of which my parents tolerate. I thought it’d be a struggle to find food we’d all like, or that we’d have to settle for a dish or two! Far from it: throughout the week, we somehow did not repeat a single meal. Virtually everything we ate was stellar: mandu (dumplings) with homemade skins prepared by a friendly grandma; kalguksu (knife-cut noodles), bindae-tteok (mung bean pancakes), and hotteok at stalls in the Gwangjang wet market now made famous on Netflix; soba noodles with a perilla leaf pesto at a fusion spot, samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) made even fanicer with abalone and cordyceps at a somehow affordable Michelin-listed eatery, hotpot and claypot rice… Even trendy things like fancy bagel shops and egg toast were hits with my parents. When they finally relented to my suggestions of hanwoo barbecue and fried chicken, they were surprised at how elevated and delicious they could be. Menus specialising in one or two things means they’re done well. And in a city as crowded as Seoul, restaurants that somehow feel spacious and decorated like worlds of their own — many behind semi-hidden doors too — offered us both reprieve and spectacle.

I could easily spend weeks just wandering around Seoul, taking the subway further and further out, eating my way around town, and being wowed by the conveniences, the traditions, and the creativity. (And when I tire out? Hit one of the many, many jjimjilbangs: Korea bathhouses with plenty of rooms and kiln saunas to relax and nap in…and even food courts too so you basically never have to leave!)

It’s hard to believe that 50 years ago, South Korea was considered fairly poor. The National War Museum has exhibits covering everything from the warring dynasties, but most prominently is a monument to the Korean War between the north and south, the mobilization of the UN, and the persistent threat the north remains as the frozen conflict remains unresolved (for which national service for young men remains compulsory). The tanks and weaponry displayed outside indicate the level of destruction they could inflict back then — now imagine what the other side did to them.

Rapid industrialization and high levels of education got the country from third- to first-world standards in record time, and its self-aware self-promotion and “cultural diplomacy” have played into that. (The “Korean Wave” is very much an intentional thing.) Now it’s one of the world’s major economies, with its 52 million people packed in a small area. Contrast that to its northern neighbour for what direction they could’ve gotten in.

This is all very impressive on the surface, but amidst the constant spectacle and enthusiastic camera-clicking, even my parents notice the cracks. (If you’ve read enough of my writing, you know it’s something I actively look for, rather than notice offhand.) Where are all the children, for one thing? We definitely saw many families out and about for the Chuseok holiday, but the age proportions of the crowds seemed off. At 0.7 children per woman, South Korea has the world’s lowest birth rate, where either a 2+ or ample immigration is needed to sustain the population — and now the country’s overall population has started declining already. We definitely did see some immigrants — foreigners coming for higher education, and even a healthy Uzbek population to match their diasporic mirror — and it’s both cool and weird to see non-Koreans speaking fluent Korean… but it’s not enough.

When walking around Gangnam, my mom was the one to point out all the bandaged noses. (That’s something I also saw in Iran.) My dad was oblivious until she then pointed out that all the glitzy high-rises surrounding us had floor after floor after floor of plastic surgery clinics. This is a country where parents gift their daughters and sons vouchers for surgery, and one with the highest rate of plastic surgery globally. If the pressure of bodily perfection isn’t enough, well, there’s the academic pressure and workplace pressure both infamous enough that we all know about it — perhaps all a consequence of the country’s rapid rise. On top of that, there’s a housing affordability crisis, and space in the city is at a premium. Far from the city centres, you see row upon row of drab cookie-cutter apartment buildings.

With an increasingly aging population and one which faces many social incentives to leave, the tax and labour burdens increasingly fall onto the shrinking younger population. Once aware of South Korea’s demographic cliff, it’s all hard to unsee. My dad and I are active over-consumers of news and politics, and we both also know that South Korea’s impeached and imprisoned their last two presidents over corruption scandals, and even impeached their first replacement acting president. How this country remains so advanced and glitzy, even with a dynamic youthful energy, despite its volatility is a mystery to me.

I think there’s never been a better time to experience South Korea as a visitor and to marvel at its accomplishments, and it may get even better as this golden age continues — I certainly want to return and see more of the country too. South Korea is at the peak of its powers right now, like the crest of a wave. It’ll be with us for some time, maybe even a few more decades, but knowing it’s not going to last, it’ll remain a deeply interesting place however it pans out. Tough times may be ahead, but this country’s experienced the bottom before and gotten out of it, so can they do it again?