Hongdae is one of my most favourite places in Seoul. Hongdae is in short for Hongik Daehakyo, or Hongik University.
It is less commercialized as compared to Myeong Dong, and is a popular spot amongst locals and youths. There are manyyyy things to see in Hongdae, and it homes over hundreds of cafe in just that area!!! I have over 300 photos for the cafes there, and I will be blogging it separately from this post soon.
There are a lot of small shops selling apparel, accessories, gifts, collectibles and there is a free market (flea market) every weekend. There is a great range of food there as well, most popular will be the 고기구이/ barbeque meat restaurants!
-terminology-
1000 won = SGD 1.10
홍익대학교- Hongik daehakyo/Hongdae
고기구이 - barbeque meat
샤부샤부- Shabu Shabu/steamboat
This is how the Hongik University looks like!
The free market is located at the Hongik playground, and it is usually very crowded. The stuff they sell there are mostly artsy stuff, mostly handmade and are really pretty! It's definitely a little more expensive, but you will be able to find some cheap bargains there! For the same pretty stuff, it's still cheaper than the price in Singapore.
There's performance in the midst of the market, for free lance artistes who are passionate about music.
A lot of hand made goods!
Hongdae is also known for the graffiti on its walls as it's really quite an artsy place.
Bought this nice necklace for 8000 won!
A pretty camera bag for 16000 won!
A lomo shop there!
There's also this very cool museum there called "Trickeye museum". As the name suggests, it's a museum with all the interesting displays of optical illusion and whatnots.
It is free for the public section, but you will have to pay an entrance fee of about 10000 won to enter the area where you can take photos with the 3D art pieces, the kind where you appear to be able to interact with the subjects in it.
I really like this one.. it was just one block of wood with spotlight projected from 2 different directions, hence creating 2 different images out of one block!
What did i just see? haha
I really love the toilets and the lift! Very creative ideas, and rather amusing!
In the male's toilet..
In the female's toilet, behind the cubicle doors!!
Haha, i am sure we had a peace of time while doing our business.
Hongdae is a really good place for bbq meat!! There's one very famous one called Hongik Sutbul Galbi 홍익숮볼갈, but I never got to try it because it was really crowded, after taking quite a while to find it!
Hence we settled for another one nearby!
Costs about 12000-15000 won for a portion like that (300g) - if i remembered correctly!
Digging in!
There's also Shabu Shabu 샤부샤부, which is steamboat.
Another fun hangout would be 노래방 noraebang, which is their karaoke!
Had a blast with my friends as we screamed through all the famous kpop songs and attempted to dance and shake the tambourine to it!
The machine isn't really easy to use, and the staff are usually only korean speaking, so you might need some korean friends/korean-trained friends here!
Also, Hongdae is the famous place for night life! There are a lot of clubs here, and the clubs are filled with young people in the late nights! The queue is usually quite long, and the entrance fee is about 20000 to 30000 won, usually with one free drink.
We went to 2 different clubs, one with all the diewn diewn diewn kind of music, another one with hip hop music! One interesting observation is that most Koreans like to face the empty stage uniformly and just shake to the music, quite unlike Singapore's club scene.
And, they are really a lot more daring there, as some of the guys will really go around touching girls or start dancing with them. If you aren't really the "open" type, you should only visit the clubs with a group of guy friends so that there are people to circle you and protect you! After all, it's a foreign place and you might not know what are the dangers around!
The most fun part i feel, is the supper after the clubbing!! Street food ftw! I really love those fried food and bbq meat at night, so it was a really fun experience for us!
In conclusion, Hongdae is a really great place for hangouts and the thousands of shops there will definitely give you a variety of experience. You can do almost anything there, shopping, eating, clubbing, cafehopping and just sightseeing. If you are young, you MUST visit there! :) Oh, did i forget to mention, the guesthouses (somewhat like dormitory) there is cheap and some are really good! Check out seoulwise - cheap (20000won a night), clean and well-equipped!
