Golden Week in South Korea

Golden Week is a string of holidays right next to each other in Japan and includes Children’s Day and Constitution Day. This year it lined up with the weekend and so I had a 5 day weekend! Before arriving in Japan, some of my friends and I decided to visit South Korea. I know I just studied abroad there last year, but traveling around Japan would be very crowded as everyone else is traveling around the country too, and I would also be able to visit some of my friends in Korea.

We flew out on Tuesday and arrived in Korea near midnight. We then took a taxi to our share house in Hongdae, which is right near my old housing from last semester. The share house was located near a station and a lot of restaurants, we had our own room and shared the bathroom and common areas with other people. It was an interesting change from staying at hotels and honestly reminded me of staying in a dorm.

We visited familiar places in Sinchon and Hongdae. We met up with a friend to eat lunch and also walked around Yonsei campus. When we left, it was the middle of winter and even snowing some days, but now campus was back to being green. The weather was going to be rainy for half the trip so we decided to wear hanbok while it was still sunny and walk around Gyeongbokgung. It was pretty overcast all day so at least it wasn't hot.

Besides visiting familiar places, I went to the DMZ for the first time. We booked a tour ahead of time and the bus picked us up at the station and took us north. Unfortunately, it was pouring that day so while we did get to see into North Korea a bit, the clouds covered a lot and we got blown around in the wind when we went outside. The tour included a lot of different stops and we also got to walk into a tunnel, visit a super maket in the DMZ, and watch a short video on the history of the DMZ.

I am a big Seventeen fan and coincidentally, the Seventeen Cafe in Seoul opened the week we traveled there! I made a reservation to visit both the merch store and cafe and it was amazing. This was definitely the highlight of the trip for me and I bought some merch to take back with me to Japan.