Exploring Hongdae & meeting up with fellow Chalmerists

After having settled in the dormitory and explored around the campus, we decided to spend our third day in Hongdae (홍데) district. Hongdae is one of the popular districts in Seoul where many young people/students hang out and street performers, such as dancers, singers etc. The streets are usually packed with people during both day and night, but much more crowded during weekends. There are plenty of street food vendors, clothes and makeup stores and a lot of restaurants.

This is what Hongdae looks like during weekends.

One of many street performers in Hongdae. Extremely talented people!

We took the subway from Heukseok Station (10~15 minutes from CAU) to Hongik University Station and met up with our friends from our home university. There were like 9 of us so it was a little difficult to go around, especially since Hongdae is such a crowded district. But we stuck together anyway since none of us wanted to split up haha.

We went to a street food stand and got some chicken skewers (~2,500 won / 2.5 USD). It was quite good but nothing too special, I expected it to be more spicy though. 

They seem to enjoy the chicken skewer, haha.

After walking around for some hours, we decided to go to a Korean BBQ restaurant and had some expectation that it was going to be pretty cheap if we share the bills. We went into a pretty fancy looking Korean BBQ restaurant and that was a mistake 😅. Each of us payed 25,000 won each which is pretty expensive for Korean BBQ in Korea. We also picked beef (more expensive the pork) which was another mistake haha.  It was delicious though and the service was good even though the staff couldn't really speak English.

Korean Beef BBQ with plenty of side dishes.

After dinner we went around the area and bumped into these street dance performers. There were different dancers and they were all very talented! The audience seemed to enjoy it and so did we. If you enjoy watching street performers, Hongdae is definitely a must-visit!

Anyway~ if you ever visit Seoul, whether on vacation or exchange program, make sure to visit Hongdae! It's a really fun, vibrant and lively district and time will go by really fast when you're there. You will be entertained, for sure! 

Thank you for reading and see you in the next update ;)!