Joanna Cho is a writer living in Ōtaki, and the author of People Person.

October of 2023 was my first time visiting Korea for fun – not for sad, family-related reasons. I took my boyfriend. We stayed for a month in an Airbnb in Seongbuk-gu, a small town at the base of Bukhansan mountain – the tallest mountain in Seoul. 

Being in a smaller town meant the restaurants were mean and cheap (like $10 NZD per person for a full meal – but you have to be able to read the Korean menu, or have a sim card and Google translate), and elderly people exercised by the stream, where white herons waded, and the yellow ginkgo leaves fell. Our Airbnb had a big persimmon tree outside, and down the road were two 24/7 marts. The landlady who lived upstairs gave me gifts of sunblock and skin whitening cream – I binned the latter.

The first morning, I was so excited I woke at 4, and shortly after, we began walking. We walked 28 kms that day – food market, pharmacy street, old city wall, alleyways, parks – and we kept up the good pace in the following days. By the end of our trip, my boyfriend who used to mispronounce ‘Seoul’ could read Korean, and enthusiastically greeted and thanked people in Hangul wherever we went. 

In our final days, the cold air left our cheeks pink, and we began lamenting the food we’d be leaving behind: Samgyeopsal (pork belly), gopchang (pork intestines), yukhoe (raw beef with raw egg on top), haejang-guk (offal and congealed blood soup), naejangtang (beef tripe and intestine soup), hoe (raw fish)… all with the free sides (🤤). So we ate as much as we could, and by the time we left, my suitcase oversized from handfuls of silver cutlery wrapped in towels – gifts from an aunt, my soul and stomach felt nourished in ways I hadn’t realised I’d been missing. 

There’s so much to do in Seoul (and South Korea), but here are just five of my favourite memories, and what I’d recommend if you’re going over there. But first: 1. Download Naver (Google Maps doesn’t work very well there, and Naver’s good for mapping subway/bus routes), 2. Stock up on skincare and makeup – I love Olive Young (they’re everywhere) and 3. If you want to get botox, I hear it’s only like $30.

Ginseng bath house

There was a ramshackled bathhouse in our neighbourhood, which I’ve already written about here. I love being in the nuddy and getting a good soak. 

One day, we wanted to try a new place, so we went to a more modern spot in another town. It had the usual showers and tubs (including a tub with fresh ginseng water – smells so yum!), but also a jjimjilbang. 

After bathing, I put on the cotton T-shirt and shorts I’d been given from the front desk, and walked into the unisex lounge. People lay around watching TV, eating soy sauce-marinated boiled eggs and frozen rice drinks from the snack bar, chatting. Kids and young couples had that ‘lamb towel hat’ thing going on. To the side was a salt room, charcoal room and ice room – restorative, therapeutic rooms. My favourite was the salt room, which was a wooden, conical room – like a giant party hat – with a tall roof, and a floor of salt. The steam was almost too much. My breathing slowed right down, my skin prickled. 

Dongdaemun accessories market

When my mum was in her 20s, working in fashion, she spent a lot of time in Dongdaemun. It’s an old wholesale fashion district, and even today there are elderly men balancing rolls of fabric, biking past Cheonggaechyun, the long, daylighted stream that runs west to east through downtown Seoul. 

When I was seven, when we moved back to Korea for a bit, my sister and I spent a lot of time playing in the bins of clothes while Mum talked to the adults. When I was 18, I had a cinematic romantic parting at this subway station. I have a lot of fond memories in that area.

The accessories market is stalls and stalls of cheap phone accessories, headbands, jewellery and everything for making your own accessories. It’s sparkly, loud, cramped and hot. It seems to automatically generate in all directions – like a procedurally generated universe – so you can never reach the end. We decided to split up and meet by the stairs in an hour. 

I got lost in the aisles, blinded by all the pretty trinkets. I spent ages wondering whether to get the opaque pink bear phone tok or the clear glitter one, before getting both. I got a velvet headband with pearls on top, and some Hello Kitty paper clips. My boyfriend got a handful of rubber dinosaurs. Neither of us are very good at shopping. 

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

There are lots of great galleries and museums in Seoul, but the MMCA by the old palace had one of my favourite exhibitions. One Hundred Years of Travels by Jung Yeondoo included a long video work (almost an hour long – we watched it lying on bean bags) telling the story of Korean migration to Mexico, to work on cactus farms, in the early 20th century. It’s a sad story – false promises, unforeseen obstacles, many hardships – and the artist connects this uprooting to that of the prickly pear cactus, whose seeds crossed the Pacific Ocean, from Mexico to Jeju Island in Korea. 

The video includes a mariachi band from Mexico, gidayū performers from Japan, and pansori performers from Korea. We actually watched the video twice in one day – the second time, we watched it with Korean and Japanese musicians/actors performing live alongside it. Jung Yeondoo was in the audience. It was really special. 

Namsan mountain

70% of the Korean landscape is mountainous. The crossover of mountains with skyscrapers is, to me, the perfect image of something I love about Korea – its layering of very old with very new. 

Bukhansan mountain, the one near our Airbnb, contains an old fortress that was built in 132 AD to protect Seoul from foreign invasions. There’s also a bunch of Buddhist temples throughout, and six Great Gates. 

Similarly, Namsan has a rich history – it too has a fortress, and an old wall. Between the 20s and 40s, when Japan ruled Korea, a massive Shinto shrine sat on top of this mountain. Now, there’s the N Seoul Tower – it lights up a different colour each night, depending on the level of air pollution. Namsan is in the heart of the city and is packed with tourists, but it’s so beautiful, especially at night, when you can see the whole city lit up, sparkling like the Dongdaemun accessories market.

One day, we spent it apart and then met at sunset, on top of the mountain. The gold light glinted off the buildings and was thrown about everywhere. A film crew had cordoned off a section – six actors walked forwards, pointed to the sky, and then walked back to repeat the scene. Hundreds of people stood with their backs to the city, to the mountains, taking selfies. The temperature was dropping, the autumn leaves carpeted the ground, and there was this painfully gorgeous awareness of time. 

Han river 

The Han river runs through both Koreas. We rented bikes in Yeouido and followed the bike path, which is made up of mini roads with dual directions and its own intersections and road signs. It was a sunny, blue-skied day – everyone seemed friendly, everything felt simple. We only had the bikes for two hours, so we rode fast and got sweaty bums. After weeks of paying close attention to everything, it felt amazing to not think, to just ride with the breeze.

As a major waterway that used to link Korea to China via the Yellow Sea, and onwards to the West (before the North and South were divided), the river has main character energy. Bukhansan – the mountain I keep mentioning – means ‘mountain north of the Han’ (buk / 북 = north, han / 한 = the name of the river, san / 산 = mountain). This shouldn’t be confused with Bukhan, which is the name for North Korea. It, too, means north of the Han river.

Recently, I borrowed a book from the library, on place names in Aotearoa. I looked up all the areas I’ve lived in. Often, all it takes for the world to expand, for understanding to deepen, for the pieces to start clicking into place, is to show an interest. Here, the awa and the wai play an important role too. In Keri Opai’s Pepeha for non-Māori, he writes about how the word ‘wai’ also means ‘who’. Ko wai koe? Who are you? But he says the old people were more likely to use the phrase Nā wai koe? Who do you belong to? – but literally, From whose waters do you descend?