- Ten things to know before you go
to Seoul in Korea.
I'm Chris.
- I'm Topher.
- And today we're gonna tell you everything
you need to know to come to Seoul.
This is part of our series on Seoul.
We've got other videos such as
the best free things to do in Seoul,
how to rent a hanbok what I'm wearing right here,
and how to ride the MRT, the subway that's under Seoul.
If you want to see those,
you'll find links in the description below
or check them out at the end of this video.
But on to things to know before you go to Seoul.
The first thing you know about Seoul
is just a little bit of general overview information.
Seoul is the capital of South Korea.
The city has a population of 10 million people.
The metropolitan area has a population of 25 million.
Seoul is in fact twice as dense as New York City.
Seoul is a buzzing high-tech metropolis,
where a high tech meets Buddhist temple.
The major religions in Seoul,
Buddhism and Christianity.
All around the city at night time,
you'll see Christian churches with light-up
neon crosses in the air.
Seoul is bordered by eight mountains
with the Han River running through it.
Seoul is considered to be one of the world's
most connected cities,
and your cell phone will work pretty much everywhere here.
Related to everywhere, something else that's everywhere
here is K-pop, Korean pop,
you will find on big lit up displays.
You'll find the K-pop stars.
You'll find K-pop stores.
In addition to K-pop, they love cute things.
There's stuffed animals everywhere,
LINE friends, Kakao friends.
People are buying stuffed animals left and right
and taking pictures with them,
which doesn't make me seem strange at all.
Topher and I as the Internet's number one human
and stuffed panda traveling duo,
I've put Topher in a lot of place to take pictures
and people look on admiringly.
Or I've been in some places and people
look on like I'm crazy.
I know I'm crazy but that's okay
and Topher wanted me to clarify one more point.
Kim Jong-un doesn't live here.
South Korea, this is the Democratic South Korea.
Kim Jong-un he's in North Korea,
and actually as I get to the end of this video,
we talk about some of the most popular things to do in Seoul
one of the most popular things is to take
a day trip to the DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone,
where you can look into North Korea.
The second thing to know before you go to Seoul
is about getting into Seoul.
If you're getting into Seoul,
chances are you're gonna be flying.
There are two major airports in Seoul.
Number one is Incheon Airport, number two is Gimpo Airport.
You'll likely be flying into Incheon Airport,
because that's the bigger international airport,
where most of the international carriers fly.
It is a bit of a ways outside of the city.
The best way into the city from there
is either through the airport train or the airport bus.
The airport bus is gonna take you somewhere
in the neighborhood of 60 to 90 minutes,
and they're pretty good because they drop you off
at your hotel, provided you're staying
at one of the popular hotels.
I've never seen an airport that has as many buses
as Incheon Airport does.
So, if you're not used to taking a bus
from an airport, just get your head around.
That's one of the best ways to get into the city from there
but they have all these different lines,
and so check out which airport bus goes closest
to your hotel.
You certainly can take a taxi.
It's gonna cost you more
and there's an airport train.
The airport train will take you into Seoul station,
and so if you're staying like at the Millennium Hilton
or right around Seoul station,
then that might be a convenient option as well.
The third thing to know before you go to Seoul
is about getting around Seoul.
So, you're in the city, you need to get around.
It is a very walkable city.
The best way to get around is to walk and to see all of it.
I'm walking through one of the historic parkways,
that is old historic houses
but when your feet won't take you
or it's too far for your feet,
you'll want to take the subway.
And so you need to buy a T-money card.
There are these cards, T-money cards.
They got a little symbol that says T-money there.
This is the LINE and Friends.
They come in a whole bunch of different patterns
and you simply tap in ride the subway.
If you want to know more about riding the subway,
I've got a whole video about how
to ride the subway in Seoul.
Taxis are a really good option.
A lot of people think taxis are too expensive.
Taxis in Seoul are really cheap.
You can take a 15-minute taxi ride
for about the equivalent of three US dollars.
I mean they are really inexpensive.
Seoul has a lot of buses.
Those will work in a pinch.
One thing about getting around Seoul.
Be prepared for stair-climbing.
You will be climbing a lot of stairs,
whether it be up to temples, old houses,
through the subways, work on your stair muscles.
You'll want to because my legs have been tired
at the end of every day here.
Before you go to Seoul, you need to know
about the weather and when to go.
And the weather, in the summer it can be hot
and humid and wet.
The summer is monsoon season in Seoul.
So, today being a rainy day is the perfect day
to actually talk about that.
They get most of their rain in like July and August.
It tapers off in September.
The daily highs can be in the mid 80s
and the lows at night don't go below 70.
So, pretty hot and steamy.
Actually not quite what we expected of Seoul
when we came because our picture of Seoul
was in winter when Seoul,
it just hosted the Olympics in 2018,
snow cold, like so in the winter it gets like
below freezing.
So, if you're coming in the winter
bring a long jacket,
and so the best times to come are actually going
to be the shoulder season,
which is like April or May or October and November,
where the daily highs are somewhere
between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Not hot and steamy and also not freezing.
Winter might be an appealing time to come,
because there's less people here
though do avoid the Lunar New Year,
because a lot of tourists from Asia
will be coming that year and hotels
will be quite expensive.
The next thing to know about Seoul is about shopping
and the center of shopping in Seoul
is in the Myeongdong neighborhood.
This is probably the younger and trendier shopping
and you have to get off the main streets
into the side street to these little narrow alleyways,
where there are shops, there are street vendors.
It is crazy and really get started
about as the sun goes down
and goes on late into the night.
Myeongdong has so many visitors here,
you'll often hear Chinese and Japanese,
maybe even more than you here Korean on the street,
because they're trying to get people to come in the stores.
(speaks foreign language) come in, come in welcome.
What's also really interesting about Myeongdong
is the shops aren't just on the ground floor,
but you have to look up a few floors as well,
second, third floor, all the way
up to the sixth floor,
and some of these things you'll find
more shops and restaurants.
How do you get up to those places?
Well it's often through little tiny staircases
just like this.
Don't be afraid, if you'll go up there
and you can find the K-pop store.
Curious what a K-pop store sells?
Well posters, postcards everything
to admire your favorite K-pop stars, even calendars,
and don't just limit yourself
to the above-ground shopping.
Myeongdong has basement below ground shopping centers
as well that seem to run forever in some areas.
If indoor shopping mall shopping is your thing
or it's a rainy day,
then you'll want to check out
the COEX shopping mall by Starfield.
It's home to the really cool Starfield Library right here
which has all these books in the middle,
but the COEX Mall it is South Korea's largest mall.
It's on the Gangnam or the south side of the river.
The other shopping mall you'll want to check out
is the Lotte World.
The Lotte World shopping mall it is under the Lotte Tower.
It's huge spread over multiple buildings,
and while you are there, you can even check out Lotte World,
the amusement park that's kind of like
the Korean version of Disneyland.
Before you go to Seoul you should know
about the language they speak here.
And it's of course Korean.
I've got a Korean book in front of me.
Hangul is the writing system,
but actually you know you don't have to be worried
that everything is only in Korean.
Actually there's a lot of English
to go along with the Korean on signage.
You'll find most of the stores like the name of the mall
is in English back there.
The name of this cake company is entirely in English too,
and so if all you speak is English
and you're coming to Seoul,
you actually can probably get around pretty good.
The subway system is signed in Korean and English.
If you speak Chinese or Japanese,
you'll probably do just fine too.
There's a lot of Chinese and Japanese tourists.
Sometimes in a restaurant or things like that
you might have to communicate with like pointing,
and they might understand you better
than you understand them.
So, if you're speaking English,
just ask a question slowly like, where is the toilet?
And then take the pointing gesture
for where you should go.
Obviously it's good to learn a few Korean phrases
before you come, like hello, goodbye,
thank you, please those sorts of things.
If you venture out too far from Seoul,
then English does kind of go away pretty rapidly,
and it's not like going to Sweden,
where English is everybody's second language.
English is definitely not the second language here,
but they've been trying hard
to help out the tourists that come.
The one place in Seoul that people speak virtually
no English is taxi drivers.
Taxi drivers universally speak almost no English,
and so I would recommend that whatever your destination is
including your hotel, to always have it written in Korean.
Don't show them in English right out of a destination,
they won't be able to understand it.
Almost every Hotel in Seoul will have a card like this
that you can get from them
that'll have the address in Korean.
Here it says, please take me to,
and then an address of the hotel.
You can also ask your hotel to write out something
on a blank card like this, where they'll write
out for you in Korean where you want to go.
Before you go to Seoul you should know
about money in Seoul and in South Korea,
they use the won and it has a lot of zeros on this.
This is a 1000 won bill.
This is the smallest bill they have.
This is about the equivalent of one US dollar.
If you're trying to do the conversion from Korean
to US dollars, just take about three zeros off,
and that's what it is at the time
that I published this video,
and the ATM will basically dispense ten dollar bills.
so 10,000 won bill.
There's coins.
They don't go very low.
I would recommend you have plenty of cash with you
because if you're shopping in some of the markets like this
these vendors are not going to take credit cards.
Taxis only cash or T-money cards,
which are the cards that you get from the subway.
Credit cards are accepted in department stores
and bigger restaurants, Visa, MasterCard,
so, so on, American Express or Discover.
You'll pretty much find that no place.
And so where's the best place to get your won?
Definitely from an ATM.
Hit the ATM up at the airport
or find an English-language ATM when you're in Seoul.
I'll point out not all ATMs speak English.
Make sure you find one that has a button that says English.
Lots of them only had Korean or only accept Korean cards.
7/11 is generally a good place to find ATMs
that accept international cards.
If you're paying by credit card,
many vendors will offer you a choice of currency
that you want to charge it in,
but be careful on this,
because if you charge it in your local currency,
they'll add a markup of 4%.
This is usually a bad deal,
particularly if you have a no international
conversion fee credit card.
If you don't have one of those,
well you should get one already.
If you're in the US,
the Chase Sapphire series of cards are pretty good ones
that come with no international conversion fees.
Another thing you should know about Seoul
before you go is about trash cans.
I mean Seoul isn't quite as bad as Tokyo,
but there are very few trash cans around the city.
It might be a good idea to bring a plastic bag with you,
so as you generate trash as you're walking around
you can put it in that bag
until you find a trash can.
The best places to find trash cans,
convenience stores, bathrooms and subway and train stations
and also back to your hotel,
but when you're walking around a lot of the tourist areas
like this one, you'll find no trash cans.
It's not like New York City
where there's a trash can on every block.
Before you go to Seoul, you should also
know about the bathrooms.
Bathrooms in Seoul, generally good.
There's quite a few public bathrooms.
However if you're in a really public, public bathroom
maybe something like in this area,
then there might not actually be toilet paper in the stall.
The toilet paper is outside the stall
and you kind of take it off
and bring it in with you in the stall.
Also a lot of public bathrooms won't have soap
or like liquid soap.
They'll have a bar of soap sitting on a little thing.
If you don't want to use the same bar of soap
that a 1000 people before you have,
you might consider bringing some of your own hand soap
or hand sanitizer with you.
Also they typically don't have towels
in lot of the public bathrooms.
So, if you want to wipe your hands,
bring some paper towels or bring a towel from the hotel
for yourself or maybe for the sweat on your forehead
when it's a really hot day like today.
Something you should know before you go
to Seoul, South Korea is about K-pop.
K-pop stands for Korean pop
and you may not have heard K-pop
if you've been living in a cave,
because Psy really took over the internet a few years ago
with his hit song Gangnam Style,
but ever since then K-pop's going around the world
and K-pop is everywhere in Seoul.
Everywhere you go you'll see pictures of guys like this.
You'll see pictures of girls like this,
but you'll find K-pop everywhere.
from K-pop stores to K-pop cafes
to pop-up K-pop performances.
So, if you've never heard K-pop,
do a little searching on YouTube
before you go about K-pop.
You'll hear the songs
and those will be the same things you'll hear
when you get here in Seoul.
It's very interesting because a lot of places
around the world you hear American music,
you know Snoop Dogg or Aerosmith in a café.
But Korea really has its own distinctive music
that they like and enjoy,
but I sometimes feel like it's a little bit
like American 90s pop music like Britney Spears
from 20 years ago just with Korean lyrics.
Well if you enjoyed this video,
you might enjoy watching some other videos
from our series on Seoul South, Korea.
You can click either them to watch
or find links in the description below.
Well we won't say goodbye,
because we'll see you in the next video.
- See you soon.