Author: Oli

Daegu is South Korea’s third largest city (after Seoul and Busan) and although it has few big-hitting sights, it’s a modern and lively city full of food, cats and fun.

After a day spent skiing, we zoomed the 379 km from YongPyong to Daegu via Seoul on a couple of high-speed trains in a single evening.

The trains were impressive not just for their speed and comfort, but also for the wireless phone chargers at every seat. Honestly, it’s hard not to feel embarrassed about the state of the trains in the UK after travelling on these.

Daegu’s history lies in Oriental Medicine, owing to its central location between mountains from which a wide range of herbs and remedies could be foraged. We learned about the development of the old medicine market from Daegu’s Museum of Oriental Medicine, which had some enthralling CGI videos to accompany the dioramas to keep our attention.

We also thoroughly enjoyed the interactive display which allowed us to determine to which of the four body types we belonged. This rather knowingly described Sara as someone who has “to rush their work because they start late and are slow” (fair), but also more insultingly claimed she likes “to slander other people” (less fair)!

While the original market was destroyed during times of Japanese colonialism, this didn’t stop Daegu from being a centre of Oriental Medicine, and the shops selling these medicines are still trading today in the area surrounding the museum.

Feeling suitably informed about Daegu’s history, we next needed to address South Korea’s shockingly low cat count, and for that we headed to a cat cafe. The cat cafe was split across two floors; the lower floor acting as more of a cafe and the upper floor a games room. The cafe was the perfect way to combine the two loves of Sara’s life (coffee and cats), and it gave us some respite from missing Thomas back home.

All in all, we met 30 new cats, though I’m not sure how to account for them on our cats per day metric. Is it fair to treat “paid for” cats in the same way as “naturally occurring” cats? I’m not sure, but here are a few of our favourites:

We probably spent more time eating and drinking in Daegu than anything else. There were so many restaurants close to our Airbnb, and a very popular street food night market to keep us grazing. We became particularly partial to a post-lunch Hotteok (rice-flour pancake filled with cinnamon, sugar and crushed peanuts). There was a lady making them in the street just down the road from our apartment, and the smell was so good we couldn’t just walk past it without buying one.

Here’s a close up of the finished product, along with a few of the other stand-out dishes we tried in Daegu:

The most extravagant dinner we ate was at 가장맛있는족발 종로점, where we ordered a joint of sliced pork shoulder, which came accompanied by the customary wide range of sides. We also ordered some rice balls, but were flummoxed when a plate of dried seaweed and a plastic glove turned up. We eventually worked out that there was rice beneath the seaweed, and the glove was to make your own rice balls. The end product didn’t always look good, but at least they were tasty! Fully embracing Korean culture, we ordered a few beers and bottles of soju to wash down our dinner, which more than got us on our way.

We ended the night with a much anticipated karaoke session in a private room, where we spent nearly the full hour trying to find a song that we recognised in the Argos-catalogue-of-songs and trying to work the machine (unsurprisingly, it was all in Korean!). I think we managed to sing a grand total of one intentional song (Just No Time To Die), although that didn’t stop Sara freestyle rapping over the various K-pop songs that I played by mistake. I think we’ll have to try again another day.

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Our onwards travel required us to get to one of Daegu’s bus stations, which could be conveniently reached from our apartment via a single underground metro. However, it would have been criminal to visit Daegu and not ride its monorail, so we cut our connection time quite fine in order to crowbar the monorail into our route. While monorails seem like quite an expensive transport solution, they definitely hold the top spot of the coolest mode of transport. The views over the city were awesome as we cruised around over the streets below on our all-too-short ride.

The subsequent bus took us to Gyeongju, which was the jumping off point for our stay at Golgulsa Temple.

While we were staying in Gangneung, we took a day trip to Haesindang Park on the cliffs overlooking beautiful Sinnam fishing village. The park was created in honour of the folklore that surrounds the village and is now the home of over one hundred graphic sculptures that decorate the park today.

The story goes that a young woman named Aerand went down to the sea with her boyfriend while he collected seaweed. While they were down there, the wind picked up and tragically the waves dragged her out to sea.

Following Aerand’s disappearance, the previously plentiful catch dried up, destroying the fishermen’s livelihood and bringing famine to the village. The villagers tried leaving food as an offering at a temple on the rocks above the site of Aerand’s disappearance, but still their nets came back empty and the village fell further into poverty.

The villagers’ bad luck continued until one night, an old man drowned his sorrows and relieved himself into the sea on his way home. The next day, the old man went out fishing and for the first time in years, returned with his net full. The old man’s change in fortune was attributed to having exposed himself to the sea the previous night, which had placated Aerand’s restless spirit. The following day, upon hearing the story, every fisherman followed the old man’s example and the plentiful catch spread throughout the village.

To further soothe Aerand’s spirit, the villagers erected a number of statues that now stand proudly along the cliffs in Haesindang Park. Local artists have taken great care in decorating the wooden shafts with indigenous flowers and fish.

More recently, the collection has got slightly out of hand, with its newest members being integrated into the park’s benches, the 12 animals of the zodiac, and even a moving water wheel.

While we were slightly bemused by the whole experience and the sheer number of statues in the park, we were even more surprised to see families with children soberly touring the grounds and to learn that it’s also a site for school trips. It wasn’t until just as we were leaving that we saw another group who were equally baffled by the surreal creativity of some of the sculptors – they really were quite something!

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With the serious sightseeing out of the way, our next stop was YongPyong, one of the venues for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

As Sara mentioned, the food in Korea is incredible, and you don’t even have to look very hard to find it. On top of that, Seoul feels so big that even if you had a few years to eat your way around the city, I bet the food scene would have moved on and there would be a whole new set of dishes to try. Still, we did our best to do Seoul’s food culture justice during our six-night stay. This post recounts our favourite meals and snacks, half of which unsurprisingly came from market stalls.

Myeongdong market

On our first night in Myeongdong we couldn’t help but end the day at its famous night market. While the pandemic has clearly had an effect on the number of stalls, the market is starting to grow back as tourists return to the city. We happily grazed our way along the two busy streets, stopping to try whatever took our fancy amid the sensory overload of light and sound from the surrounding shops.

The foods that surprised us the most were also the simplest. The tornado potato was not just impressive to the eye, but it was also beautifully crispy and rolled in a salty barbecue rub. I also enjoyed the Dalgona (a patterned cookie made from only baking soda and sugar) way more than I had expected – it was essentially a thin piece of honeycomb, and I’m glad it was the last thing we tried as it took about 20 minutes to detach the sugary glue from my teeth.

Myeongdong Kyoja

The following morning we stumbled out of our Airbnb for lunch after watching a late-night World Cup game. We’d heard that the dumplings at Myeongdong Kyoja were good enough to justify the queue, and sure enough a line had formed down the stairs by the time we arrived. Still, it moved quickly, and it wasn’t long before we were sitting in front of a steaming bowl of kalguksu (noodles in a meat and dumpling broth) and a basket of mandu (meat dumplings), accompanied by the obligatory kimchi (fermented cabbage). I think this meal epitomised Seoul in that it was both on our doorstep, and according to Sara was “everything I’d dreamed of” when we were planning this trip.

Chimaek (fried chicken and beer)

Fried chicken and beer has skyrocketed in popularity since South Korea jointly hosted the World Cup in 2002, to the point where the combo now has its own Wikipedia page. I’d raved to Sara about the raucous crowds I’d seen enjoying Friday-night Chimaek on a previous visit to Seoul, but the restaurant we ended up at was somewhat lacking in atmosphere. Still, the chicken was delish, and indeed went down very well with a crisp draft lager.

Determined to do our Friday night justice, I led Sara down what appeared to be a dark and deserted alley towards the Euljiro district, but we didn’t have to go far before the alley was lit by the many neon signs hanging from each venue.

The stumbling of our fellow punters suggested that we’d come to the right area, and then the artwork outside of Euljiro Brewing confirmed this. The craft beer on offer was excellent, and they even had an imperial stout for Sara.

Gwangjang Market

Just northeast of the Euljiro district lies Gwangjang Market, a huge, covered market containing many fabric shops and restaurants. Despite its size, the market stalls that lined the centre of each thoroughfare squeezed the crowds down tiny alleys between fryers and restaurant benches.

The sheer number of options was a little overwhelming, and in lieu of any further research, we joined a queue that had formed outside Park’s Mung Bean Pancake restaurant. Unbeknownst to us, this restaurant had been featured on Netflix’s Street Food: Asia series, which somewhat explains its popularity. Our menu selection consisted of the namesake’s Bindaetteok (Mung Bean Pancake), Tteokbokki (chewy, cylinder-shaped rice cakes in a sweet and spicy sauce) and Gimbap (rice and vegetables wrapped in seaweed and drizzled with sesame oil). I absolutely loved alternating bites of the crispy Bindaetteok with the heat from the Tteokbokki, while Gimbap was Sara’s surprise favourite of the meal. Looking around at other tables, we realised such a meal should be accompanied by a bottle of Makgeolli (rice wine), which we drank out of the small metal bowls in the corners of the picture below. For once, I felt like we got our order spot on, and this turned out to be my favourite meal we’d eat in Seoul.

Korean BBQ

No trip to Seoul would be complete without a trip to a Korean BBQ restaurant. While normally you’d cook your own meat over a grill in the centre of your table, Suwolga offered a bespoke experience whereby the chef would grill the pork in front of you, with the help of a blowtorch for additional charring. The grilled pork was accompanied by a couple of tiny dishes containing salt and wasabi for dipping, along with a handful of vegetable sides as well. While this meal wasn’t the DIY BBQ experience we’d read about, it was way more relaxing knowing that our food was being cooked to perfection by a professional. We even made it on the restaurant’s Instagram page – please don’t judge my BBQ hamster cheeks though, I was mid-mouthful!

Gamekol Son Wangmandu

Following our hike around Namsan Mountain Park, we went looking for some sustenance at Namdaemun Market. While many of the clothes shops were closed on the evening of our visit, the restaurants and food stalls were fortunately still going strong. We joined a queue that had formed outside Gamekol Son Wangmandu, although it quickly became clear that the queue wasn’t moving and the staff weren’t working either. That was until a timer went off, and the whole kitchen sprang into action. Trays of steaming hot dumplings were passed out from the ovens, which were subsequently packaged up and handed over to our fellow customers. While most people seemed to be taking the dumplings home, ours didn’t make it more than a few metres from the kitchen before they were devoured. The dumplings themselves consisted of puffy dough surrounding a minced pork, onion and kimchi filling, which perfectly satisfied our stomach rumblings.

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There was so much more good food in Seoul that we just couldn’t fit into this blog post. Still, we needed to burn off the calories somehow, and for that, we headed to Seoraksan National Park in the north-east of (South) Korea to hike up Ulsanbawi Rock.