W
e’ve heard of cat cafés, but in
Seoul they’ve already moved
on to raccoons, meerkats and
owls. This I discover while
roaming the streets of
Myeongdong, a fashionable
shopping district on the most expensive real estate in
Korea. You can buy anything here, if you can find it.
My guide, a lifelong resident of the city who instructs
travellers to call her Sky because her Korean name is
Kim Jong-Un, wants to show me Stylenanda Pink
Hotel. I don’t know what that is, and neither does Sky- she’s heard it’s a “popular destination for youngsters”
- but the more pressing concern is that we’re lost, and
every street features the same array of cosmetic surgery
clinics, skincare shops, and sneaker emporiums.
“We never make appointments in Seoul,” Sky
says as we push past a teenager wearing headphones
handing out samples of “snail mucin sheet masks”
promising brighter skin. Next to him is a septuagenarian
hawking fragrant strawberries off the back of a cart.
“You say, ‘see you tomorrow at the Nike shop.’ But
the next day? It’s gone!” Though it might make social
engagements more difficult to plan, the city embraces
change as a constant. Perhaps that’s because even
by 20th-century standards, Seoul’s recent history is
particularly unhappy; 35 years of Japanese rule until
1945 were followed by the devastation of the Korean
War, during which the city changed hands four times.
Since the separation and founding of South Korea in
1953, its capital has undergone one of the world’s
more convincing economic transformations. Seoul is
now a hyper-modern city of 10 million and feels like
a vision of the future – more so than other Asian
metropolises, even Tokyo.
As in Japan, though, written addresses are
all but useless. There are 25 districts, or gu, and
423 neighbourhoods, or dong. Armed with this
138 GOURMET TRAVELLER