Seoul Again, Naturally
For our final couple of days in S Korea, we enjoyed another snowy train journey back to Seoul. From our hotel window, we can see all life, but it is across the water, so we catch a quick and wonderfully well-equipped underground train to get to the nearest shopping centre, The Hyundai, to find lunch.
And what a lunch. One of the best meals of the entire trip. We have been obsessing over Tan Tan noodles - not Dan Dan that we’d had before - from Sarukame.
Looking for a coffee, we stayed in the centre to have a humdrum experience at Milestone Coffee. After a stroll around the shops, we grabbed some beautiful baked goods at Vezzly before heading to our glorious hotel. After enjoying a bit of time in our room, we headed out for dinner with a view just a few floors up.
We had an even more spectacular view at breakfast the next morning, before heading out to explore the Mapo area. First stop, coffee at Cappy, followed by a long walk and a pause at the frozen waterfalls, which, I decided, were every bit as stunning as they must be in full flow.
Then back to The Hyundai Seoul for lunch, more TanTan noodles and more coffee, this time at the place called The Coffee, where I uncharacteristically had peanut caramel iced coffee on a cold January day. You could easily spend half a day in this place without ever needing to step outside.
We ventured to a different part of the centre to have a satisfactory, but very much ordinary dinner at a chain, American Chinese. I didn’t even note this so luckily I had taken a photo to remind me.
After doing most of our packing, we ended the evening at our hotel bar with two very expensive cocktails, served with fancy vegetable crisps, toasting one helluva trip.
Coffee, boutiques that sell BBC Earth merchandise, the famous skincare, nature, quirky art and wonderful people. What's not to love about Seoul?
January 2026
