Our Golden Week trip to Seoul was our very first overseas vacation (not including visiting home) in our 4+ years living in Japan. Even though we spent less than a week there, both Trevor and I had an overall amazing time. We loved the food (I ate so many egg breads omg so good), met some amazing people, got to meet up again with an old friend, and had fun doing some typical touristy stuff! I honestly would love to travel to Seoul again if I had the chance!
One of the touristy things we did was try on hanbok, traditional Korean dress.
I knew before our departure to Seoul that I wanted to try on hanbok. I didn’t care how cliche it was- I just wanted to do it to say I did it. I made a reservation through KKday beforehand to try on a hanbok from what seems to be a popular place: Seohwa Hanbok. From a lot of blog posts I found, Seohwa seemed to be renowned for their beautiful hanbok.
(Btw, the KKday booking I did allowed me to rent my hanbok for up to 6 hours for less than 2000 yen at the time of pre-purchase back in April. Also not affliated with them in any way, just liked that I was able to save some money using their services)
Things I liked about Seohwa Hanbok:
- Beautiful and unique hanbok
- Super close to Gyengbokgung (also free entry while wearing hanbok!)
- You can make reservations easily beforehand online
Things I didn’t really like
- Incredibly crowded and cramped
- Difficult to claim vanity spot to do hair and makeup (which is why it’s best to do it beforehand)
- Need to leave passport as a deposit
To sum it up, yes, I think they did have an incredible selection of hanbok. I really liked the one I picked out to try on for the day, but to be honest the experience in and of itself was something I wouldn’t want to go through again. I made my reservation for the earliest slot that I could and it was still insanely busy and cramped inside. It was also difficult to find a spot to do hair + makeup (you could always do beforehand though) so I opted to just leave my hair down. If I were to happen to want to try hanbok again I would honestly just find another place. Just from walking around, there were so many hanbok rental places that I felt had hanbok just as pretty as the ones at Seohwa.
Trevor rented his royal attire from the place right next to Seohwa- unfortunately I can’t remember the name of it but I do remember the workers being fabulously warm and friendly to us. One of the ladies even let me borrow a headband to go with my hanbok for free- even though I didn’t rent from their place! The environment here was a drastic difference from Seohwa. It was much more relaxed and peaceful. 10/10 would recommend!
I will say though that Seohwa’s location right next to Gyeongbokgung makes it very convenient to go check out the royal palace quickly and efficiently. You’re also able to enter for free if you’re wearing a hanbok! Nice perks.
The day we went also happened to hold a festival of some sort. (I can’t remember, sorry!) To be frank, we mainly took photos here. I do recall reading some of the information regarding the history of the palace but I can’t remember any exact details.
After that, we decided to head towards the Bukchon Hanok Village area to find more photo spots. We struggled for a while to find one particular spot but on the bright side, we saw some pretty cool traditional Korean houses. Needless to say, we weren’t the only ones thinking of cool photo spots, so it was busy by the time we finally found it.
One of my favorite things about wearing a hanbok is how easy it is to walk around in! I’ve tried on traditional Lao dress (sinh) and a Japanese yukata- both have bottom halves that restrict the movement of your legs so it was quite refreshing to be able to walk normally!
(Additional photos are on my instagram page if you scroll back- I’m reaching that wordpress media limit!!)
KSeraSara 