South Korea 2022: The Hyundai Seoul

day 6

I swear I read somewhere that this new Hyundai Seoul is the biggest mall in Seoul and big it was! The inside was so nice and clean - the white, modern, and minimalistic aesthetic, we love. I think we decided to spend the whole day here - it was kind of in an area that wasn’t really close to anything else - and if anything, we’d just go home/Lotte Mart for dinner.

THE HYUNDAI SEOUL

When you enter through the main floor, you will see all your major high end brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc scattered on the perimeter. In the middle, they have beauty, makeup, and accessories also from these big brands. I find that, especially in Canada, if you can find the brand it’s better to buy it here than in Korea (or Japan). Sure you might save on tax but if you end up having to pay duties once you cross the border back into Canada… you’re paying like 20% of its retail price - not sure if that’s worth it. Maybe if it happens to be on sale or the Canadian dollar is super strong overseas… but anyway… this floor wasn’t really for us. The second floor has “less known” designer brands - I put that in quotes because depending on who you ask they either know or don’t - like Sandro, Stone Island, Maison Kitsune, etc. It basically like most expensive to least expensive.

What’s great is that you can find washrooms on every corner of this mall and they’re nice and clean (at least for the mens washrooms, which is usually a surprise). Anyway, we decided to head down a floor where the food was because we needed to find something to eat first. There were A LOT of food options down there - like an elevated food court - there were restaurants, bakeries, small booths and stalls all over.

We saw these tofu pockets which looked delicious and decided to stop by for a quick bite to get something in our stomachs.

I was kind of shocked there were so many options of tofu pockets. For the most part, even though everything Hangul, we could generally tell what everything was made of - beef, tuna, egg, etc… Though for some we couldn’t really tell. Thankfully Google translate exists, so that was a lot of help! A girl who saw us struggling a bit started telling us what was what, which was nice!

You basically self serve here - there’s a tray at the beginning and you just use the tongs and just grab whichever you want.

The store is called YUBU by the way and actually they just recently opened one in Toronto, so if you wanted to try these without going to Korea, go downtown (lol). For $2.50 - $3.50 CAD each, a pretty cheap eat if you ask me. I don’t think I can remember enough of how each tasted to give a numerical rating but I do remember generally… My favourite one was the egg. It was just delicate and a bit creamy. Not salty and not sweet. It’s kind of like what you expect scrambled eggs with a bit of Kewpie mayo would taste like. The salmon one for me lacked flavour, I’m not sure if the salmon was marinated in anything? But a bit of wasabi and vinegared rice in a tofu pocket didn’t give enough - maybe you were supposed to put soy sauce on it?? But they didn’t give us any soy sauce so then maybe not. The bulgogi one I think was my second favourite - it was a bit sweet, sort of like teriyaki beef on rice. I think the middle roll was roe with tuna inside, this one was good too. The other 2… I honestly cannot for the life of me remember what they were LOL BUUUUT I can give an overall rating for this place. I think for the price, convenience, and flavour… I give it a solid 7/10.

There were so many tasty looking bakeries and coffee shops around and of course, because we didn’t have any coffee yet we needed to stop by one. Some were huge restaurant style bakeries, some allowed you to walk though there whole selection and choose want you wanted (like a typical Asian bakery), and some were just small stalls. We stopped by this one called Paris Croissant.

Ok, I don’t think this first video is actually from Paris Croissant but just giving you an idea of what these bakeries sell. But there was truly SO much to look at and so much I wanted to eat. I was pretty sure we told the girl that we wanted to eat HERE and NOT to go but for some reason they packed everything in bags and gave us to go cups. At first we were going to sit down in their seating area but I was scared that - because there is a RULE that’s in the LAW that if you get something to go, you go… and if you decide to stay, they give you the typical cups and plates they can wash and reuse… which makes sense - but I was scared we would get dirty looks (lol). So we just walked to a different seating area to eat and drink our goodies.

We got iced lattes for drinks, I picked up a scone and some sort of spiral croissant and my sister got a crème puff. The latte was pretty good - it's basically what you expect. Note that a lot of lattes in Korea are not pumped full of sugar (which I’ve been finding), which I don’t mind either because then you really get to taste the coffee and that will balance the sweetness of your baked good, you know?

I really wanted a scone so bad and I’m glad I got one. It was so buttery and the crumb in the scone was SO freaking good. I was OBSESSED with this sone and I kept telling my sister and mom they needed to try it and they did - they said it was good but they weren’t as obsessed as I was. They just didn’t have my refined palate you know (jokes). 9/10 please get the scone. The croissant was also very tasty, it was nice and flaky, buttery and slightly sweet - so this went really well with the coffee. Giving that an 8/10. My sister said the creme puff was her favourite and that it was REALLY good. I did have a taste and it was good. There was so much cream inside, once you bite it open, it like oozes out. It wasn’t overly sweet either and we love that.

After our small eating adventure downstairs we walked around the floors upstairs. We weren’t really looking to shop but you never know when something might catch your attention right? I was surprised to see Club Monaco here which is a Canadian brand - or well it started as Canadian, don’t think it is anymore - but no point buying it when I have it at home. I was still looking out for Tamburins Chamo perfume because of miss Jennie Kim but no luck (lol) and my mom was (still) looking out for a National Geographic jacket but honestly, she didn’t even know exactly what she was looking for. She was basically looking to see what would catch her attention.

There was a floor with a section with tons of shoes, a section that reminded me of The Bay here in Canada, some home section, furniture, homeware… so, so much to look at. Since we came in the middle of November, nearly Christmas, there was a Christmas set up on the top floor. They had like small shops up there and photo ops for you. It was actually so packed up there.

The top top floor had even more restaurants and food places. We also stopped by the bottom bottom (B2) floor, which had even more shops. It was a mix match of stuff: clothing, accessories, vintage, pop-ups, a Casetify (lol), fragrances, and so much more. Honestly, you could totally spend a whole morning to night day here.

I will say, one thing that I didn’t really like was that many restaurants and even these small shops and stalls (with smaller seating/eating areas) required you to “line up” by putting your phone number into their machine system. Being a non-resident, where would I have a Korean phone number?? So whenever I go next time and my recommendation to you is to get a sim (or e-sim) instead of portable wifi… so you have that phone number to line up in these restaurants’ queues.

After walking around for hours, we were getting hungry and of course running into that phone number problem… we decided it was time for us to head back to our Airbnb. We stopped by Lotte Mart to grab some easy meals to cook. One of my favourite things is that because we always head there near the end of the day, a lot of things get put on sale to clear out any fresh foods. I picked up this army stew kit - EASILY for 2 people to eat - for less than $10.

These kits are the best because everything is basically already prepared - you just open everything and throw it into a pot to cook. Anyway the army stew (I love army stew) so good. Nice and spicy. Love the variety of items and the slice of cheese is pretty common, there was a trend of putting a slice of singles cheese in your shin ramen. Don’t knock it until you try it. I also picked up this very popular grape drink that has piece of grapes inside. Honestly, I don’t know why I expected the drink to be carbonated (probably because it was in a can) but it was just juice… it was super sweet - not my favourite sorry.

And here we end our day! If you’re looking to really shop til you drop, you can totally do it at The Hyundai Seoul. Or if you’re more into food you can honestly spend the whole day here too eating around. But that ends this post, until next time!

-Thomas