Here is a list of the American brands I have found established in South Korea. Some of the things were an obvious find (McDonald’s) and others not so much (Papa John’s/Smoothie King – I thought those brands were region specific, not international). Indeed, the influence of the United States in South Korea is visible at every turn inside Seoul. As American brands find partners into South Korea, they are turning their eyes on the healthy market here. It makes plenty of sense since South Korea is still a growing developed nation with just around 3% unemployment and consumers ready to spend.
Although there is a growing list of restaurants entering the market, there have been a few chains that have failed to enter South Korea, for example, Taco Bell is on their 2nd attempt in South Korea and Wendy’s failed in 1998 to successfully run in South Korea (though you have to consider the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis). One of the most interesting chains in South Korea to me is Bennigan’s as most of the branches in the United States near me have closed down, while the branches in South Korea continue to function.
American restaurant/fast food chains in South Korea:
I have been selected to be on a team for the 1st Korean Food Tour for Foreign Foodies. My team and I will travel to the Jeollanam-do province in Southwestern South Korea to try various food dishes and blog about our experiences. In addition, a television crew will follow us around and film us and the tour will later air on KBS2 (a major broadcasting network here in Korea). You can follow my adventures eating through Seoul on my food blog Carlos Eats. I will add a directory soon to this website as well.
I am quite excited to go on this tour sponsored by the Korean government. Jeolla is known for having beautiful sights and the time we are arriving (the end of October) should be a great time to fully experience autumn in Korea. I will be writing about my experiences on here as well as this perhaps one of the biggest opportunities I have obtained since arriving in South Korea. Many adventures to come soon
YONgojeon (연고전) is a historic annual sports rivalry event that occurs between Yonsei University and Korea University. It reminds me of homecoming back at the University of South Florida. Students from both schools assemble and cheer for their respective team in games ranging from basketball to rugby. Yonsei students make food for other students and bring water bottles to keep everyone energized and cheering. The various student organizations also assemble themselves with customized t-shirts. The cheerleaders (pictured above) are endlessly energetic and are supported by flaming fires and even fireworks inside the sports stadium. The cheering is so intense that its difficult to even pay attention to the sports game.
People deck themselves out in gear from their school and cheer in subways and on the streets. After the games the cheering moves to partying in the hosting town. This year the party was hosted by Yonsei University and the party was all over Sinchon. Students could visit restaurants and sing cheers in return for free food. You could see packs of Korea University students carrying their school flag through the city from night til dawn. This is something you could imagine in a small town, yet it is being practice in a big city and I found that to be very interesting.
Drinking is allowed on-campus and Yonsei University provided free beer and sandwiches to students at the free after-party concert with various singers and headlining K-Pop group “Sistar”. This concert was awesome (though 30 Seconds to Mars through MTV at USF was pretty sweet last year). After the concert people continue cheering and drinking on-campus with Korea University students or head into Sinchon for the various promotional club parties happening.
I was impressed with how modern Gangnam looked. It reminded me of being in Downtown San Francisco with many tall buildings and a crazy amount of American and European retail and dining chains. The Doctor Fish Cafe is located close to Krispy Kreme.
We headed out to the Doctor Fish Cafe in Gangnam the day after visiting the Godabang Cat Cafe. Doctor Fish stems from a Turkish tradition of using freshwater fish to bite the unhealthy, or dead, skin away from your feet, leaving healthy skin to grow. Although especially helpful for people suffering from psoriasis, eczema and dermatitis, in 2006, doctor fish spa resorts opened around the world as a sort of novelty pedicure service.
You pay 2,000 won for to do the doctor fish, which basically clean the dead skin on your feet. In addition, you must order a beverage and the cheapest is around 5,000 won for a total of about 7,000 won. What’s cool is you get unlimited bread and butter/jelly to enjoy in a book cafe while you wait for your turn to do the doctor fish treatment.
The doctor fish was lots of fun. We were giggling and laughing at this new experience until we became familiar with the sensation of the fish swarming at our feet. I’d say it is something everyone should try at least once. After the treatment our feet felt great and renewed for at least 2 days.
The Grand Hilton Seoul will host their annual Oktoberfest festival this weekend on September 23rd and September 24th. There is much history behind Oktoberfest festivals and they have been held since 1810 in Munich and eventually spread around the world through various other festivals based on the original. There will be beer, traditional German food, games, and the German “Paulaner Oktoberfest Band” performing live. The event starts at 6:00PM on both nights and the price is 120,000 KW (including tax and a service charge).
Some photos from Oktoberfest 2010 at the Grand Hilton Seoul:
Location: Grand Hilton Seoul
Address: 201-1 Hongeun-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-710, Korea
Directions (Subway): Hongje Station (Subway Line 3), Exit 2. Take Bus 01 from the station to the hotel. Hotel is about a 15-min walk from the station.
I have many Filipino friends in Tampa through the Association of Filipino Students at USF and also through the annual Tampa PhilFest. There aren’t many places where you can buy Filipino food in Tampa and when I went to California in 2010 for spring break I went nuts at all the Filipino take-out joints. I learned about the Filipino Market in Seoul through CNN Go and decided I had to have some to see how it fared against the food I have tried.
According to CNN Go there are currently around 7,000 Filipinos living Seoul. Many people (including American Filipinos) were surprised to learn this number when I told them about it. This local community has become a part of this growing weekly market. The market occurs on Sundays every week from 9AM-5PM (they were even open during Chuseok weekend). The market isn’t too far from Yonsei University and we were at Hyehwa Station (Line 4) in just a short while. As soon as we started walking out of the exit we saw a number of Filipino people coming down and knew we were on the right track.
You walk straight for a few minutes until you reach these tents on the right side filled with Filipino goods. The market was packed with people looking to buy some food or items. Most of my friends never tried Filipino food before and were amazed with how good the food was, not to mention the great prices of the food (1,000 won-6,000 won price range). Most of the people there speak English and Korean – a great stop for travelers.
The first thing we had were these Filipino empanadas that tasted packed with flavor. They were sweet and it was actually the first time I have ever tried this style of empanada (it really is interesting how each Latin-influenced country has a different take on the dish).
There was a great deal of produce available at very reasonable prices. If you want to cook your own Filipino dishes at home this is the perfect place to go buy those ingredients.
There was plenty of food to choose from and I predict many trips to this market in my future. Some of the dishes had the price marked, while others seemed to vary depending on how much you got or whether you knew what you were talking about it. One really tasty thing we had was this fresh coconut juice with pieces of coconut inside for 1,000 won. It was sweet and reminded me of a coconut drink I had at The Wat Thai Temple in Tampa before I departed for Seoul.
The halo-halo was probably the most expensive thing I bought. It was 5,000 won, but it was delicious. The mixture of different ingredients was refreshing on a hot summer day and it was quite a change from the halo-halo glasses drinks I am used to. The portion was in this big bowl so I would certainly say it can feed more than one person.
So many things to eat! We also ordered this banana dessert dish. It was super sweet and actually quite good when shared between two people. The lumpia was delicious – you have to remember to ask from some sweet sauce though.
We met Norma Santos at the Filipino Market. She is the founder of the weekly market and spends each week planning out the market. She was very friendly with us and asked us to please call her Tita Norma. I hope to meet her again in the future and ask her more about the history of the market. In this photograph she was grabbing me a root beer (you can find lots of root beer here…one of my favorite sodas).
Overall, the Sunday Filipino Market is a great way to experience how other cultures have become a part of South Korea and also enjoy some authentic Filipino food for great prices. I look forward to my next visit to the market and meeting Tita Norma once again.
Name: Filipino Sunday Market
Neighborhood: Jongno-gu
Address (English): 58-2 Hyehwa-dong, Jongno-gu
Address (Korean): 종로구 혜화동 58-2
Getting there: Take Subway Line 4 to Hyehwa Station, Exit 1. Walk straight toward Hyehwa Catholic Church. You’ll see the market on your right.
I heard about cat cafes while living in Tampa. The concept really interested me: you pay a fee to spend time with an animal for the day and then when you are done you go on your way…no veterinarian checkups, no litter boxes to clean, no ruined home furniture. On my first Saturday in Seoul we decided to visit a cat cafe in Sinchon called Hello CatGodabang.
The cat cafe is located by Sinchon Station on the 8th floor of a building. The sign is red, yellow, and blue and has a small black cat on it. The elevator is really small so some of us had to walk up the stairs to avoid the weight limit being reached. There was initially a 30 minute wait and then they contact you when you can come back. When you enter the cafe you clean your hands with sanitizer, take off your shoes, and put on slippers.
You pay the cashier at the front and order a beverage of your choice. The beverage is your admission cost. I had an ice cafe mocha and it was great. The cost per person is about 8,000 won.
The employees come and serve you coffee and then after some time the cats are brought out little by little. The cats are used to lots of people being around and don’t really pay attention to you until the employees give you some cat food on your hand and then they all come running to you. Most cats are only one or two years old and there is an information wall about each cat in the cafe in Korean.
You’re not allowed to pick up the cats probably to avoid any possible problems. The cats are de-clawed so you won’t get scratched. The floor is surprisingly clean and I didn’t see any cat fur lying around during my visit. The employees are really friendly and seem to love their job. The variety of cats in the cafe was neat and I kinda wish we had one of these in the United States (though I’m not sure PETA would allow it).
Overall, visiting the cat cafe was a fun and inexpensive experience that I would recommend to anyone in Korea. Cat cafes can be found in other towns around Seoul as well. There are a number of other cafes with other animals as well (I want to visit a dog cafe in the future).
Some friends and I heard about Club Day in Hongdae (홍대): a college town near an art school called Hongik University. Club Day is an event that occurs in the last Friday of each month and on this night you can get a wristband that allows you to club hop all night long.
We decided to take the subway to Hongdae and boy was it crowded. Riding the subway at night is way more busy than during the day and all the club goers made it even more crowded. We literally had to push to get on and some lady actually fell over when the subway started moving. Luckily, Hongik University is just one subway stop away from Sinchon.
The first club we went into Harlem was pretty big. Nothing like Barfly. This club had two floors. Oddly, many of the people inside weren’t dancing. They were just standing around or shuffling. We didn’t care though we came there to party and get loose haha so we jumped in the middle of the dance floor and started dancing. My friend immediately drew a crowd and throughout the night many locals would come observe us and then join in and dance for a few minutes. I had a blast!
It was pretty awesome hearing K-Pop songs in the club even if we were the only ones dancing to it. One cool thing about clubbing in Korea is that they don’t discriminate against guys. Guys pay the same cover charge and you even get a free drink. That never happens for guys in the U.S.A. The drinks were pretty good too!
After we had our fun in Harlem we walked across the street and entered NB I with our wristband. It was a Hip-Hop club as well, but this club was fully packed.
We had fun in there as well. This club was even bigger than Harlem, but way more busy. The crowd was fun and somehow all our friends from campus ended up here as well and before we knew it we had almost 20 friends in the club. The crowd here was also more lively and actually dancing so that was cool as well.
We danced and danced until our feet hurt so much and we grew tired and decided to leave and head home. Getting home wouldn’t be easy though. It was past midnight so the subways were closed. Grabbing a taxi driver from Hongdae to Sinchon is hard because the distance isn’t too far away so taxi drivers don’t want to drive you. Another issue was that we were a group of five and taxi drivers hate taking lots of people because they get less money this way.
I learned a valuable lesson this night though. If a taxi cab is vacant just jump inside and tell the driver where to go. If you make it inside they are less likely to refuse your request and will most likely take you to your destination. This could have saved us hours on a ride back home so I thought I would put that piece of advice on here. We ended up taking a courtesy shuttle home and were lucky our friend was feeling generous and picked up the tab.
Overall it was a great night though. I look forward to the next Club Day in Hongdae
The Yonsei Mentors Club is the backbone that teaches international students about Yonsei University school spirit. They cheer. They dance. They wear cool blue track outfits and represent their school. Part of our orientation was learning some of the cheers from the club. They guide you through each cheer and dance. It was silly, yet fun to hang out with everyone and watch them all trying to dance on command while watching the experts perform in front of us. I shot some video footage of the cheering orientation so you could see for yourself.
Some of the songs were funny because the beats were familiar to us, especially one song that had the beat of Butterfly from Dance Dance Revolution (my favorite game at home =P).
Most of us got worn out during the middle of the show, but the Yonsei students had an endless supply of energy and made it all look so easy. They were really cool and must have practiced really hard to have such a flawless performance.
After the orientation ended we split our cell groups and went out to eat with our mentors. They went out the first night as well, but I missed it since I was in the middle of flying around the world. Our mentor walked us into Sinchon and took us to a Korean restaurant. The Korean food there was actually too spicy for my liking and I didn’t really enjoy the food, but it was fun hanging out and meeting lots of new people in my cell group.
Our cell group leader is a medical student so he is always busy studying, but he tries his best to come and meet us. Korean students work so hard to be hospitable to foreign students, it’s really great. He explained the food we ate in the video below:
This food is called NolbuBudaejjigae(놀부부대찌개). It’s a spicy stew of ham, sausage, tofu, and fresh vegetables boiled in front of you. It originates from the Korean War and was popular for quite some time afterward when people didn’t have much to eat. They made the dish by combining leftover Spam and hot dogs from U.S. army facilities. The city of Uijeongbu (의정부) is famous for Budaejjigae.
After we finished our food, our mentors group went out for Makgeolli (Korean rice wine) and some Haemul Pajeon (seafood pancake). I tagged along for a short while before breaking off to head to Hongdae (홍대) for Club Night with some friends.
