If you’re looking for unforgettable cultural experiences, South Korea is one of the best places to go. This country offers more juxtapositions than virtually any other and is incredibly varied, a bit like Britain or Spain. South Korea is full of Buddhist temples, misty mountains, and bustling markets, so there are loads of things you can do there to enhance your lifestyle and have the best time of your life.
Learn some ancient traditional crafts
South Korea is a great place to learn ancient traditional crafts. Korea has been around as a civilisation for many thousands of years, so there are many new things for travellers to do. For example, you could try making kimchi with a local chef, or you could learn the intricate brush strokes of minhwa, which is a type of folk painting. You can also work with various dyes or make traditional pottery.
Look for workshops in the city you travel to. There are many in Seoul, but there are also plenty of others across the country if you’re outside of the main capital, including in places like Busan.
Dive into the world of K-culture
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have noticed that K-culture is taking off globally. Not only is there K-pop, but also K-dramas and Korean-specific cinema. This has been dubbed by many the Korean Wave, and it’s one of the country’s largest exports. Korea has proven exceptionally adept at capturing the world’s imagination, similar to America’s Hollywood. What should you do if you love K-culture and you’re visiting the country? One of the best options is to:
- Visit K-pop entertainment agency buildings in Gangnam.
- Take various K-pop dance classes in Seoul’s Hongdae District.
- Visit the filming locations of films created in Korea, like Winter Sonata.
Once you start exploring the Korean Wave phenomenon, you soon discover how extraordinary it is. How was it that a small country with a tiny GDP 40 years ago was able to create one of the most successful cultural exports of all time in just a few short years?
Rejuvenate in a Korean bathhouse
While Japan has its onsens, Korea has its jjim-jilbang, or Korean bathhouses. These are the epicentre of Korean wellness and culture, a tradition that dates back thousands of years to the ancient world.
What’s so impressive about these bathhouses is the sheer range of options available to you. There are hot tubs, cold plunges, and scrubbing stations. Getting a full-body scrub from a professional in Korea is perfectly normal, even though it’s not the sort of thing that often happens in the West.
Use skin-renewing salts and scrubs to remove dead skin and help you feel your best. If you want, you can also visit these places to go saunas. These often have different themes, with some offering charcoal kilns while others are regular salt rooms. While you’re in these rooms, you can snack on traditional Korean foods like baked eggs and a type of rice punch called sikhye.
Check out Busan’s Gamcheon Village for coastal culture
There’s no doubt that Seoul is the cultural epicentre of South Korea, but if you head to the south, you’ll come across the coastal city of Busan, which offers a different vibe. It’s home to Gamcheon Culture Village, a vibrant, terrorist community in the foothills of the coastal mountains. Interestingly, this location was originally a refuge for victims of the Korean War, but it was transformed in 2009.
Today it’s an exciting artistic location featuring various murals, winding staircases, and uniquely painted houses. As you go through the labyrinthine, built-up area, you’ll discover all sorts of hidden gems. It’s well worth taking your time to see exactly what’s in this area. You won’t be disappointed.
Explore the DMZ
Many people like to leave their luggage at Radical Storage Seoul Station and head out to the DMZ or Demilitarised Zone. This area is still an active conflict zone between North and South Korea, but it’s also a sobering educational experience in what happens when foreign policy goes wrong.
Guided tours take interested tourists to various sites, including the Dora Observatory, where it’s possible to look through binoculars at North Korean villages. It’s also possible to visit the Third Tunnel of Aggression, a subterranean invasion route discovered in the 1970s and subsequently blocked off.
What’s interesting about visiting the demilitarised zone is that it shows what happens when the legacy of a war, like the Korean War, can last over seventy years and still remain unresolved.
Discover the artistic soul of Insadong
If you’re interested in experiencing more of Korea’s traditional arts and crafts, heading to Insadong, a neighbourhood in Seoul, is a great idea. This is a little bit like Gamcheon Village and has numerous art galleries, antique shops, and stationery stores. You can also find vendors who sell their handmade crafts to you in person, with many traditions still running strong in the country.
Try to go on the weekend if you can. Local authorities transformed the area into a pedestrian-friendly promenade with various fortune tellers and street performers, making it a more exciting experience. Don’t forget to try out honey dragon’s beard candy, which is a fun, sweet treat to have on your way around.
Taste some authentic Korean flavours at Gwangjang Market
Another thing you can look into is tasting authentic Korean flavours at Gwangjang Market. The market was established in 1985 and is one of South Korea’s largest and oldest. The central food alley is overwhelming if you’re not used to it, with so many different sights, smells, and sounds. This isn’t the sort of place that you can visit in a single afternoon, although it is relatively compact. There’s so much to taste and try on offer here that it almost makes your head spin. We recommend checking out:
- the spicy rice cakes
- the narcotic rice rolls, so named because they’re so addictive, even though they don’t contain any narcotics
- these savoury mung bean pancakes, which are sold by multiple vendors in the area
