- Why hello there, I'm currently

in the middle (laughs).

Oh why hello there.

You'll have to excuse me.

I'm in the middle of reading one

of my favorite Korean novels,

in the city of Seoul.

And today, I'm going to be sharing with you

some of the best things you can do

on your trip to Seoul.

So without further ado, let's get started.

(electronic music)

Now this is a city like I have never seen before.

It's this hyper advanced Asian city

that loves poop emojis and loves spicy food.

Coincidence?

I think not.

From its' Korean barbecue restaurants,

its' vibrant, alcohol infused nightlife,

and of course its' love for everything

that is cute and weird, I have never

seen anything that quite compares to South Korea.

After just shy of a week in Seoul,

these are the 30 things, facts,

and places that I can't pronounce,

that you need to know about before

arriving in this incredible travelers destination.

Starting with number one, the lightening fast internet

at affordable rates.

From the moment I arrived at the airport

I was extremely excited.

I had options to have unlimited internet

on my phone for an entire month,

at basically the price I would pay

for the most basic entry level plan in Canada.

But the amazing thing was, that fast internet

is not just limited to your phone.

It's also in the hotels, the hostels,

wherever you go, you can get huge files

uploaded very quickly.

And that makes me very happy.

The second thing you need to know

is that Seoul is a massive, gargantous,

monolithic city, with sides separated by a river.

It can actually take you quite a bit of time

to get from one side to the other.

There's two main areas we stayed in

there's Gangnam and there's Hongdae.

I wanna again reiterate that I'm gonna

struggle to pronounce a lot of these names.

So if you're gonna be that person

in the comments section any you're gonna be like,

"He didn't pronounce it properly."

Well, I know you're not perfect either, so try me.

Now Gangnam is this very hosh posh,

kind of Hollywood style side of South Korea.

It is beautiful.

It is lit with neon lights.

And it definitely is a place that I recommend you check out.

But I must say that while it was beautiful

it's definitely much more the local

South Korean side of things.

And while that can be an amazing thing

it can also make things a little bit more difficult.

To best explain that I'll give you

the other side of the equation, which is Hongdae.

Hongdae is the university town in South Korea

and things are a bit more compact.

It's easier to walk from place to place.

You still have that beautiful vibrancy.

You got the night markets.

You got amazing shopping, affordable prices in some areas.

While the accommodations is probably

gonna be around the most expensive

you'll find in South Korea.

Now, with that being said though,

it is worth every penny.

Hongdae is the place that I recommend you stay in.

Because if you're an English speaker

it definitely makes it easier to get around.

There was more places that had English menus.

But there's still going to be a bit

of a language barrier, which brings me

to point number three.

The language barrier is sometimes

quite real in South Korea.

Most people don't really speak English that well

and I don't speak Korean that well.

From time to time it can be hard

to order from a restaurant, talk to a taxi driver.

Another thing that makes it challenging

is they have their own completely unique alphabet,

which, mind you, is actually a very cool alphabet.

I mean, just look at that.

Very cool, Korea.

Now that we're in the 21st century

one of the things we've become reliant on

is our phones, on Google maps, on Yelp,

those GPS based apps that help us get

from place to place.

Finding the best restaurants, the best bars,

figuring out where to go, how to get there,

and something that really made Korea

challenging for me was the fact that GPS

is kind of like, disabled here.

It's the only country in the entire world

that does not have Google Maps.

Even their friendly neighbors to the North have Google Maps.

Now the reason they don't actually have it

is because of that very same reason.

Apparently South Korea wants to limit

how much of the GPS and map systems

are publicly available.

There are some Korean equivalents,

but the thing is they're not currently in English.

With that being said, I was able

to use Google Maps to some extent.

It just won't really show you how long

it takes go get from place to place.

You can still see your blue dot walking around the map

because it won't show you where to walk.

I found that it was a little bit helpful for bus routes

because when I needed to do a long distance

I could still see which way the bus station was.

I could still see which direction it ran.

Even though it didn't give me an accurate

time estimate, I was usually able to

somehow use that a little bit.

I wanna talk about a place by the name

of Common Ground.

Now Common Ground is the shipping containers

that have been turned into a very trendy place

to get a coffee, get some food,

and do a bit of shopping.

One morning we started off our day here.

And these are some of the restaurants

I highly recommend you check out.

So Allie's explained that, essentially,

there's a vacuum created by this.

And it's sucking the water upward into this cup here.

Oh, you can flush it, like a toilet.

Oh, here we go, ohhhh, coffee magic here folks.

Look at the mushroom on top.

And six hours later it is ready.

Kati doesn't even like coffee

but she can appreciate the craft.

I don't always drink black coffee

but with this style of coffee I would.

It's a solid cheese block.

- No, it's red.

- [All] Ohhhhh!

- Oh my gosh, it's like a golden brick of life.

I love cheese.

I love bread.

I love this.

That's like four dollars.

So this coffee was four dollars.

There are so many cool places to eat here.

And, and it also brings me to my next point

which is Korea's love for everything

that is cute and weird.

I'm so sick of the world telling me

what I can and can't do, it's time to fly.

(electronic music)

So, I've never in my life seen this before.

But I just got handed a guide on how to care for a Marimo.

These are 40 year old Marimos,

but they didn't always start off so big.

They're basically a giant algae ball or plant.

Those little guys right there are about

one month to one year.

- When do they start talking and saying, "Daddy."

- [Man] I don't know if they ever do.

And of course, you could get some slime.

I'm having way too much fun in here.

Bit of a focus called Wiggle Wiggle.

- We will now take our relationship to a next level.

- We spent about an hour 1/2 to two hours

shopping at around three or four

of these stores in Common Ground.

(he barks)

Now before I get a noise complaint,

I figured I'd move on to the next point,

which is that you must check out

the nearby coffee shops.

If we find it, this is truly a hidden gem.

This is so cool.

Hidden in the midst of all the repair shops,

all the mechanics, is like this converted garage

that's become this really trendy coffee shop.

Baesan Coffee and Column Coffee.

And these are these incredibly trendy,

hipstery, very

Oh, Matcha's really big here in Korea.

- I have no idea what it is, but it's amazing.

(electronic music)

Bay-be coffee shops.

Now on to the next point.

I wanna talk about transportation.

And I know this next comment might be

a little bit controversial because

I've just watched three YouTubers

review on South Korea and they all said

that the metro system was cheap, affordable,

and easy to use.

Okay, so here is the situation with transit

from somebody who can't speak Korean

and can definitely not read it.

It is very challenging.

The metro system here is a bit of a nightmare.

Nothing was written in English.

None of the locals fully understood what we were saying.

And we couldn't use Google Maps to tell us where to go.

So we got in the metro anyways, just to test it out.

And yes, it was very efficient.

It was actually super quiet, super clean.

The quietest metro system I've ever taken.

But we ended up going in the wrong direction

and there was no English signs to tell us otherwise.

And that would be the last time

that we tried using it, on our entire trip.

Buses were actually still usable,

as I said before, using kind of

a primitive Google Maps, I was able to figure out

where the pickups were and if they

were the right bus, based on the numbers.

But because we were in a big group of four of us,

we actually spent most of our time taking taxis.

And here's some great news for you,

wanting to travel South Korea.

We are not setting foot in another bus or metro system.

Taxis are so cheap.

We just took one that was probably about 15

20 minutes and we paid around six US dollars.

Starting around three dollars and having

the meter raise very slowly, it's sometimes

even cheaper if you're in a big group

to take a taxi for the short distance.

Also, do not bother with Uber unless you want Uber Black.

Because that's the only version they have available.

And unless you're made of paper money

then it's not for you.

Now, a bit of information on prices.

I would say South Korea is definitely

a bit more expensive than your average Asian city

but not as expensive as, let's say, Tokyo.

So some prices that you should know about

are of course, going to be the transportation,

which I've already shared a little bit about.

Now, going on to accommodations.

Hostels can be as cheap as 10 dollars a night,

whereas if you want a mid to entry level hotel

you're looking around $50 US a night.

If you want something nice, like we had

in the Gangnam District, we stayed at Glad Live,