About a 10-minute walk from Yeouido Hangang Park are two malls that are adjacent to each other and connected by an underground pass: we checked out The Hyundai Seoul first, a large and relatively new shopping mall that is top-to-bottom opulence. There was a large crowd already gathered at the mall’s entrance lobby before its opening hour of 10:30AM. And as soon as the doors opened, visitors seemed to all make a beeline for the escalator going up, or the other escalator going down to the basement.
We had a suspicion that dining places at the basement were going to get real crowded fast, so we opted to explore the basement level first. As it turned out, that was the astute decision: because seating was rapidly filling up as soon as we made our way down. The basement has a very large number of dining options, including a food court with very retro-styled food trucks that are actually food stalls.
It took us a moment to figure out the food court’s ordering process though for us international tourist types. But basically, after making your menu selections, at the payment stage, you’re required to enter your mobile phone number. There is supposedly an option to pay at the food stall itself, but that didn’t seem to work: to continue onto payment processing, there is no other option but for you to enter your phone number. Upon payment, you get an SMS confirming the order, and another SMS when your food is ready for pick-up. Pro-Tip: use the in-between time to find where the food stall is! There are perhaps 15–16 food stalls in the food court, and stalls did not seem organised in a logical manner. Fare in the food court is also not at the kind of prices we’re used to in Singaporean food courts: items at The Hyundai Seoul food court routinely all cost upwards of 12,000 KRW.
By the time we’d finished lunch at 11:15AM, there was literally no more vacant seating in the food court, and groups of visitors at the outskirts were surveying the area trying to find empty tables. We headed up to the fifth level where there were several stores that were of interest: including LEGO, Disney, LG, and also Samsung stores. But what we also found was an indoor Christmas market that was beautifully done up with ceiling decorations. Pretty nifty – and probably why the crowds were all rushing for this level when the store opened.
Our main takeaway was that The Hyundai Seoul is for rich people. So, we made our way to Basement B2 and made our way to the IFC Mall via the underground pass. This mall felt a lot more down-to-earth and the kind of setup we’re used to in Singapore. What was also especially interesting was that this was a dog-friendly mall: many locals visiting had their furry friends in carriers, pet prams, or on leashes.
We next explored the district a bit more and landed up in a cafe joint called Brewda for beverages to also take a break and think about our next options. This was very early afternoon, so we eventually swung back to Yeouido Hangang Park to explore the Christmas market that should have opened by this time.
That’s a wrap for our Day 16 activities. We’d be checking out of our Airbnb apartment tomorrow morning and making our way to Incheon. To be continued!