GYEONGBOKGUNG
The first stop on this journey is Gyeongbokgung Palace – the historic heart of a city that is constantly changing. I arrived early in the morning, when the sunlight was not yet strong enough to dispel the chill of the early morning. The ancient tiled roofs curved in the early morning sunlight, the dark wooden walls were illuminated by the light shining through the red maple trees, looking both ancient and quiet. Everything here was quiet and proud, as if every stone here was holding the memory of the Joseon Dynasty.
BUKCHON HANOK VILLAGE
Leaving Gyeongbokgung, I walked along the cobblestone alleys to Bukchon Hanok Village – an ancient village quietly located in the heart of the city. Without a tour, without a map, I just followed my intuition, and accidentally found moss-covered walls, half-open wooden doors, and roofs leaning under red maple trees.
Bukchon is not noisy. Although located in the heart of the city, this place still retains the tranquility of a garden kept for those patient enough to find it slowly. I saw a different Seoul, not through signs or high-rise buildings, but through the soft lines of hanok roof tiles, through wooden windows flickering with yellow lights and the lime walls faded with age.
Bukchon Hanok Village – an ancient village located quietly in the city center
RAKKOJAE SEOUL MAIN HANOK
I spent a night at Rakkojae – an old hanok restored into a traditional resort. Without the flashy amenities of a 5-star hotel, Rakkojae offered something different: no elevator, no TV screen, just paper sliding doors, old tiled roofs and cool dark brown wooden floors. The night at Rakkojae was so quiet that I could hear the wind blowing gently through the roof, the soft knocking of bamboo against each other in the yard. It had been a long time since I had heard that sound – the most original, yet the most easily forgotten sound in the noisy city.
Breakfast here is simple yet beautifully detailed. A small wooden tray with rice, seaweed soup, seasonal vegetables, and a bowl of mildly spicy kimchi. Each dish seems to be arranged to remind people to slow down and appreciate more.
Rakkojae is an ancient hanok restored into a traditional resort.
EUNPYEONG HANOK VILLAGE
The next day, I went a little further, about 40 minutes northwest of Seoul to Eunpyeong Hanok Village, which seemed to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city. If Bukchon resembled an ancient book stained with time, Eunpyeong resembled a freshly written handwritten letter – neat, tidy and filled with a deep, modern pace of life without losing its connection with nature and tradition.
Nestled at the foot of Bukhansan Mountain, Eunpyeong is a harmonious combination of contemporary hanok architecture and cool natural landscape. The traditional tiled roof houses, but with more streamlined lines, are more airy and bright, no longer a nostalgic past, but a present recreated with respect. Walking in the village, I heard the sound of wind blowing through the trees, the gentle sound of wind chimes ringing from the eaves of a house by the road.
Eunpyeong neither tries to hold on to the past nor rushes to the present, but stands in that middle place – just quiet enough to make us want to stay and fresh enough to make us feel like we are stepping into something else, light but evocative.
Eunpyeong is like a world of its own – modern hanoks blend with nature, monasteries and mountains
SEOUL THROUGH THE WINDOW
That afternoon, I stopped by Woo Mool Zip – a small restaurant located on a gentle slope, quiet and filled with light. The large glass windows opened up to a gentle sky, where each yellow leaf drifted in the wind, falling slowly as if enjoying a leisurely lunch. I chose to sit near the window, to eat while quietly watching Seoul pass by in a rare slowness. The hot bowl of clam soup was brought out in a steaming stone pot, the taste was fresh and cool, like the atmosphere of this city on changing seasons, light but full.
Romantic Seoul through the window
Cake decorated with sweet figs
Seoul these days also holds me back with a very Korean habit: café hopping. I chose Rafre Fruit, a small cafe hidden in a quiet alley, specializing in only one type of seasonal cake, based on the fruit at its peak. The season I visited was the sweet fig season. The small cake with a light layer of fresh cream, dotted with thin slices of fig, was both pure and neat enough to make me look at it for a long time before tasting it, as if not wanting to destroy that fragile beauty. The shop was small, delicately decorated and cozy like the kitchen of a friend who knows how to love beauty just enough.
STARFIELD LIBRARY SUWON
Before leaving Seoul, I stopped by the Starfield Library in Suwon – a book space nestled in the middle of a shopping mall. The bookshelves reached the ceiling, and the warm light bathed each book in a sophisticated film set. I sat there, not reading anything – simply to feel myself in a city where books, architecture, and emotions could coexist in the same breath.
Starfield Library in Suwon – a building that is both a reading space and a famous check-in spot
Before leaving Seoul, I spent an afternoon visiting the Starfield Library in Suwon, a book space located in the heart of a bustling shopping mall, but strangely quiet. The bookshelves were so high that they seemed to touch the ceiling, and the warm yellow light covered each page, making the whole scene appear like a meticulously staged film set, both modern and filled with the dreaminess of Korea.
