Walking around Seoul pt. 2

HiKr Ground, Insadong, and Hybe Insight

There are many cool areas of Seoul to explore, here are some I went to recently.

HiKr Ground is a tourism promotion center near Myeongdong. There are 5 floors you can explore which have different aspects of Korean tourism, including K-pop, K-dramas and movies, and Korean health and skincare. The first floor had a huge media wall that displayed different images. Then on the second floor, K-pop Ground, there were various rooms where you could change the lightning and play K-pop songs. A lot of people do K-pop dance covers here. Next, the third floor had different art exhibits, including a display on popular K-dramas like Squid Game. The fourth floor had medical tourism information and you could take a tea type test, stress test, and skin test. The top floor had a cafe and a nice view of the area. The best part about this was that admission was free!

Just north of Myeongdong is Insadong. There are a lot of cafes in this area as well as souvenir shops. I've walked around this area multiple times and have bought a lot of things to take back home. One of my favorite shops is located in Ssamzigil, a shopping complex, and sells cute cat-themed stationery. Right next to Insadong is a small area called Ikseon-dong, which has a lot of cafes located in different alleys.

Near the end of the semester, I finally got to visit Hybe Insight (a K-pop exhibit) in Yongsan. I am an avid Seventeen fan, which is now under Hybe Entertainment, so of course I had to go. They were running a BTS exhibit for a couple months so I had to wait for the regular exhibit to open up again. You have to make a reservation ahead of time and I also bought a photo-card ticket, which was only a couple thousand more won.

There were two different floors you could walk through at specific intervals. The first floor had a lot of exhibits on the producing process and showed the studios of some artists, like the BTS rappers. There was an area where you could put on headphones and mess around with the sound on selected songs like Tamed-Dashed and Yet to Come. Also on that floor were huge screens showing different dances from Hybe boys groups (BTS, Seventeen, TXT, and Enhypen), but instead of the songs playing, there were only music beats and drums. After forty minutes, it was time to move on the next exhibit. We went into a room where the walls were made out of screens and saw some cool graphics. That room also had a wall displaying trophies and awards won by Hybe groups over the years.

Next we went to the second floor, which had many different displays. There was a rhythm beat game and a room where you could film a short video and apply special effects to yourself moving around. On the wall were pictures of each member from the four boy groups. Each Seventeen members' matching rings were also on display. Afterwards we went into a theater to watch a ten minute film of different idols talking about their careers, personal experiences, and more. Lastly, we walked through a room displaying every album from each Hybe group.