The Rough Guide to Seoul (Travel Guide eBook)

Rough Guides

Description

Discover Seoul with the most incisive and entertaining guidebook on the market. Whether you plan to check out the changing of the guard at Gyeongbokgung, indulge in mouthwatering seafood at Noryangjin Fish Market or head farther out to discover the DMZ, The Rough Guide to Seoul will show you the ideal places to sleep, eat, drink, shop and visit alongthe way.
-Independent, trusted reviews written with Rough Guides' trademark blend of humour, honesty and insight, to help you get the most out of your visit, with options to suit every budget.
- Full-colour chapter maps throughout - to find your way between Seoul's astonishing array of art galleries and bustling food markets without needing to get online.
- Stunning images a rich collection of inspiring colour photography.
- Things not to miss - Rough Guides' rundown of the best sights and experiences in Seoul.
- Detailed coverage - this travel guide has in-depth practical advice for every step of the way.
Areas covered include: Insadong, Seochon,Myeongdong, Samcheongdong, Namsangol, Yangsu-ri, Bukchon Hanok Village, The DMZ,Ganghwado, Chungmuro, Itaewon. Attractions include: Bukhansan NationalPark, Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Noryangjin Fish Market, Samneung Park,Gwangjang Market, Jjimjilbang, Seoul Museum of History, Deoksugung, Dongdaemun
Basics - essential pre-departure practical information including getting there, local transport, media, festivals, culture and more.
Background information - a Contexts chapter devoted to history, religion, film and books, as well as a helpful language section and glossary.
About Rough Guides : Escape the everyday with Rough Guides. We are a leading travel publisher known for our "tell it like it is" attitude, up-to-date content and great writing. Since 1982, we've published books covering more than 120 destinations around the globe, with an ever-growing series of ebooks, a range of beautiful, inspirational reference titles, and an award-winning website. We pride ourselves on our accurate, honest and informed travel guides.

Sujets

• Korea
• Corée

Informations

• Publié par: Apa Publications
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9781789195187
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 22 Mo

Extrait

Jon Arnold/AWL Images
Contents
INTRODUCTION
What to see
When to go
Author picks
Things not to miss
BASICS
Getting there
Visas and entry requirements
Getting around
The media
Festivals
Culture and etiquette
Living and working in Seoul
Travel essentials
THE GUIDE
1 Gyeongbokgung and around
2 Insadong and around
3 Gwanghwamun and City Hall
4 Myeongdong and Dongdaemun
5 Northern Seoul
6 Western Seoul
7 Itaewon and Yongsan
8 Southern Seoul
LISTINGS
9 Accommodation
10 Eating
11 Drinking and nightlife
12 Entertainment
13 Shopping
14 Sports and health
OUT OF THE CITY
15 Around Seoul
CONTEXTS
History
Religion
Film
Books
Korean
Glossary
SMALL PRINT INDEX
Getty Images
Introduction to Seoul
Operating at a determinedly breakneck speed amid a cartoonish mayhem of lights and sounds, Seoul ( 서울 ) is like some kind of gigantic, endlessly fascinating pinball machine. Visitors quickly find themselves acclimatizing to the balli-balli pace of this high-rise, neon-soaked, open-all-hours city, careening between barbecued meat joints, rice-beer bars and open-air markets as though there weren’t enough hours in the day, while racking up bonus points for coping with Korea’s famously spicy food. It’s also a joy to see the city’s other side – palaces, temples, royal tombs and ancestral shrines provide picturesque evidence of Seoul’s five centuries as a dynastic capital, and you’ll never be far from a mountain to race to the top of. This mix of ancient history and modern-day joie de vivre gives the city an almost unmatched vitality, and the temptation to throw yourself in at the deep end is impossible to resist – Seoul is a city that really never sleeps.
While Seoul itself is home to around 10 million people, the city has more or less swallowed up the neighbouring cities of Suwon and Incheon , giving it a combined urban mass of more than 25 million inhabitants – one of the largest on Earth. Ethnic Koreans dominate the population, with only 300,000 registered foreigners living here, two-thirds of them Chinese.
That Seoul exists at all constitutes a minor miracle, since the Korean War saw it laid to waste in the early 1950s. The city sits just 30km from the border with North Korea , one day’s march should the DMZ separating the countries ever be breached, and until the mid-1970s, Seoulites were poorer than their counterparts in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. The city’s transformation since then has been nothing short of incredible – just a few generations down the line, it’s one of the most modern and prosperous cities in the world, a major financial centre whose skyline is continually being enriched with gleaming skyscrapers.
But for all its nonstop consumption, Seoul is also a place of considerable tradition and history. Six wonderful palaces in the centre of the city proclaim its status as a seat of regal power from as far back as 1392 – the year that Seoul became capital of the Joseon dynasty , whose line of over two dozen kings ruled over all Korea until the country’s annexation in 1910. Elsewhere, the tiled roofs of wooden hanok houses gently rise towards the ash-coloured granite crags north of Seoul, and the ancient songs and dances of farm hands and court performers are clashed out in a whirligig of sound and colour along Insadonggil, a traditional and tourist-friendly road in the palace district.
It’s impossible to talk about Seoul without mentioning Korea’s wonderful cuisine . Received Western knowledge tends to start with dog meat and end with kimchi ; today, however, few Koreans eat dog (though some curious foreigners manage to hunt it down), and kimchi is a mere – if ubiquitous – side dish. Indeed, those in the know can barbecue marinated beef at tables inset with charcoal briquettes, stuff themselves with the dozens of side dishes available at a royal banquet and take their pick from a bewildering array of super-fresh seafood . In addition, Korea boasts Asia’s best selection of indigenous alcoholic drinks, including the delicious milky rice-wine, makgeolli .
Seoulites themselves are a real highlight of any visit to the city: fiercely proud, and with a character almost as spicy as their food, they’re keen to welcome foreigners. Within hours of arriving, you’ll probably find yourself racing up a mountainside with new friends in tow, lunching over a tasty barbecued galbi , throwing back dongdongju until dawn, or singing the night away at a noraebang . Few travellers leave without tales of the kindness of Korean strangers, and almost all wonder why the country isn’t a more popular stop on the international travel circuit. Tourist numbers are, however, rising – the secret is well and truly out.

iStock
Gyeongbokgung


Shutterstock
Namdaemun Market
Back to Introduction
What to see
Seoul is colossal, its metropolitan area stretching far and wide in a confusion of concrete and cleaved in two by the Hangang , a wide river crossed by many bridges. But despite its size, a very definite city centre – just small enough to be traversed by foot – has been in place north of the Hangang since the late fourteenth century, bounded by the five grand palaces . Of these, Gyeongbokgung is the oldest and most famous; Changdeokgung is another great example, just to the east, and in between the two sit Bukchon Hanok Village , central Seoul’s only area of traditional wooden housing, and artistic Samcheongdong , a young, zesty area filled with trendy cafés, restaurants, clothing boutiques and art galleries.
Just to the south of all these is Insadong , Seoul’s tourist hub, full of traditional restaurants and tearooms, excellent souvenir shops and more art galleries than you can count – and with a beautiful temple and a small palace of its own, you could easily spend the whole day here. To the south is busy Jongno , Seoul’s most important thoroughfare, and sketching a liquid parallel line south again is Cheonggyecheon , a gentrified stream lying beneath street level.

Seoul’s wooden heart
Though it may be hard to believe today, within living memory Seoul was a low-rise city. Its now-ubiquitous skyscrapers all went up over the past few decades, and as recently as the 1960s there was scarcely a multi-storey building in sight. On the fall of the Joseon kingdom in 1910, almost every Seoulite lived in the traditional form of housing – squat wooden houses now known as hanokjip ( 한옥집) , or hanok for short: the longer version means “Korean house” to distinguish these buildings from modern Western forms of accommodation. Although almost all hanokjip have now disappeared, a few clutches remain, particularly in the charming, hilly neighbourhood of Bukchon Hanok Village .
Hanokjip are built almost exclusively from local materials – wood for the main framework, stone for the foundations and courtyard, and earth to fill the walls. Earth walls ( hwangteo ; 황터 ) have long been believed to have health benefits, as well as the practical advantage of insulation. Like Japanese houses, hanokjip make great use of handmade paper ( hanji ; 한지 ) – sliding doors and windows are covered with thin sheets and the walls with several layers, and even the flooring is made up of hundreds of sheets, each leaf varnished to produce a yellow-brown sheen mimicked by the yellow linoleum flooring found in most modern Korean apartments.
One feature which sets hanokjip apart is their use of underfloor heating, known as ondol ( 온돌 ). Rooms are raised above the courtyard, providing a space for wood fires; again, this feature has wormed its way into modern Korean housing, though today gas is used instead of flames.
Cheonggyecheon starts footsteps from Gwanghwamun Plaza , a city square surrounded by imposing buildings (including Gwanghwamun itself, the south gate of Gyeongbokgung). This area, and that surrounding City Hall to the south, constitute Korea’s most important business district, and you’ll see an awful lot of suits at mealtimes and during rush hour. Hidden among the tower blocks are scores of buildings dating from the Japanese occupation period, these elegant colonial structures now incongruous in their modern surroundings.

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NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA

Unravelling Korean place names
Many foreign visitors to Seoul struggle with the lengthy transliterated Korean place names, but armed with a few facts – and some practice – you’ll be able to distinguish your Insadong-gils from your Samcheongdongs, and perhaps even Changgyeonggung from Changdeokgung. The key lies in the suffixes to these long words: gung , for example, means “palace”, and once removed you’re left with the slightly less bewildering two-syllable name of the complex in question – Gyeongbok Palace, and so on. The dong suffix means “district”, while gil means “road” – all of a sudden, it’s possible to break Samcheongdong-gil down, and identify it as a thoroughfare in the Samcheong district. Others that may be of use are gang and cheon , respectively used for waterways large (the Hangang, for example) and small (Cheonggyecheon); mun , which means “gate” (Dongdaemun); and dae , which usually signifies a university (Hongdae).
The business area segues into Myeongdong , the busiest shopping area in the country, packed with clothes stores, restaurants and tourists from other Asian countries. It’s flanked to the east and west by Dongdaemun and Namdaemun , two gargantuan market areas, and to the south by Namsan , Seoul’s very own mountain, which affords fantastic views of the city centre and beyond.
As you travel further out from the business and palac