Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Gwangjang Market

It has now been a week and one day since we arrived in Seoul. It has been a fairly interesting week filled with jetlag, new culture, new experiences and new people. So far, I have no complaints about Seoul. This city is amazing and I really do enjoy living here. Would I live here forever? Probably not, you may ask "Why not?" But that's a story for another day 😉.

Yesterday, we met up with our friends from my home university again and decided to visit Dongdaemun (동대문) and explore the Gwangjang Market (광장시장). We were (again) too many people, but this time we decided to split up. The girls (including me) went to the market while the boys went to the Doota mall. We had a little bit of trouble finding the Gwangjang Market because there were so many markets around the area, but we found it eventually thanks to Naver Map and Google. You should be able to find the market by walking along the Cheonggyecheon Stream (청겨천) for about 10 minutes.

The famous Cheonggyecheon stream located in Dongdaemun district.

Gwangjang Market was absolutely amazing! The market was filled with street food stands and other small souvenir shops. However, every stand has pretty much the same kind of food. Inside the market was very humid and hot due to the boiling food and the crowd. Me and the girls ordered some chicken feet, 닭발 (10,000 won / 10 USD), stir-fried glass noodles, 잡채 (5,000 won / 5 USD), steamed dumplings, 만두 (5,000 won / 5 USD).  Personally, I thought the food was alright. I enjoyed the dumplings the most, especially the white ones. The noodles were quite enjoyable as well. The chicken feet were a bit underwhelming since I expected it to be more tasty, it was quite expensive as well.

A closer look of what we ordered.

More food in the Gwangjang Market. I will come back to try these some day!

After our little meal, we went back to the mall to meet up with the guys. We went to a cafe and sat and talked for a little bit and convinced the guys to go to the market for dinner. My roommate, unfortunately, got sick due to the heat so she had to go home and rest. We decided to visit the Dongdaemun Design Plaza before the market to take some pictures.

Stairs leading up to one of the entrances to the building.

Going down the plaza from the rooftop area. 

The Design Plaza had some interesting architecture and it was beautifully lit during night. We went inside the plaza but there wasn't much to do inside. We took the elevator to the 4th floor to get to the roof but there was some kind of formal event going on in the reception. Everybody was well dressed, except for us. I don't think we were supposed to be there because everyone was literally staring at us. But we went in anyway lmao and got to the roof area of the plaza.

After the stroll around the plaza, we headed back to the Gwangjang market for some food. This time we found a noodle place. There was one lady from this market that was on a Netflix series that I really wanted to try but unfortunately her stand was full and we settled for the stand across hers instead.

The Netflix lady. I'll definitely try her food next time I visit the market. 

This time I ordered kalguksu (칼국스), a homemade noodle soup that costed 5,000 won (~5 USD), which is very cheap for the portion size that we got. We even got some side dishes with it. You can always ask for more side dishes here in South Korea, for free! The noodles were freshly made in front of us which was pretty cool. The broth was tasty and the side dishes that were served along with the noodles worked very well together.

Homemade noodle soup. 

The boys happily waiting for their food after a long day walking.

After dinner we split our ways and headed straight home. It was a very fun and interesting day! I'm definitely coming back here to try the other food.

If you really want to experience authentic Korean street food, you should definitely visit Gwangjang Market! It can be quite hot walking around in the market, I'd recommend to bring with you a mini electric fan. Other than that, the atmosphere was amazing and vibrant and I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as we did :)

Thank you for reading! 곧 만나요~ (See you soon~)