Have you ever been to Insa-dong or Myeong-dong for travelling?
Here are the two
totally different places where I visited and almost every tourist goes for
travelling. I want to evaluate two visiting places for potential foreign
tourists coming to Korea.
The BEST: Insa-dong
Here you can experience
Korean traditional culture easily. Along the way, many stores are selling
traditional goods like the photo below.
Even though I am Korean, I don’t have
many chances to experience the tradition easily. Whenever I go there, there are
some cultural events like the video or many artists are playing their
performances.
The WORST: Myeong-dong
I sometimes feel I am
in another country when I go to Myeong-dong. I can see Japanese and Chinese much more than
Koreans. Every announcement from all the stores like UNIQLO and ETUDE is spoken
in Japanese and Chinese. I don't think this is bad. Actually it is a good
phenomenon for Korea to have lots of foreign tourists from other countries.
But as I think this is too crowd for
me, I don't want to go there again.
Look at these pictures of Myeong-dong
on Christmas. It makes me feel terrible when I am stuck in the crowd. And there we can only do shopping not other activities can be expected because it is filled with countless cosmetic shops and clothing shops.
As I'm Korean, I am quite familiar with how to get to places like Myeongdong and Insadong. But, your explnataions would be really helpful to foreign tourists. I can see why you like Insa dong and hate Myeongdong. I don't enjoy being in crowded places either, so I totally agree with you, and Insadong is full of cultural and historic places. There are many great traditional cafes in Insadong. I want to visit there again some time.
ReplyDeleteYes, Myeong - dong is really crowded and I have been there in Christmas eve. However, I had really good time with my friend eventhough there are lots of people. I think that many couples visit there for just looking : ) I love In-sa dong because I can see many old stuff but I think that it is usually for tourists not for local Koreans maybe for Koreans It would be better to visit Jeon Ju ~ or the other places
ReplyDeleteI can't agree with you more, opinion of Myeong dong. Myeong dong is always crowded of chinese and many people recently. I can't go ahead in Myeong dong and it's really noisy. I don't like crowded place, so I don't go Myeong dong frequently. However Insadong is not that crowded in your post. I'll visit Insadong after midterm exam!
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