Living at my own pace, exploring a wide world. - Travel, culture, and everyday stories from a local in Seoul

Gyeongju: Korea’s Open-Air Museum City

2026-09-01

Dear reader,

Most travelers’ itineraries in Korea start and end in Seoul. If they’re feeling ambitious, Busan or Jeju gets added to the list. But today I want to tell you about a different city, one where you can’t take a step without walking over a thousand years of history. That city is Gyeongju.

Why Gyeongju matters

Gyeongju was the capital of Silla, one of Korea’s ancient kingdoms, from 57 BC to 935 AD, nearly a thousand years as the heart of a single dynasty. That’s why the city carries the nickname “the museum without walls.” In most places, relics sit behind glass in a museum building. In Gyeongju, you walk down a street and pass a royal tomb, or find a thousand year old stone pagoda standing right next to a cafe.

Daereungwon, a garden where kings rest

The first stop most visitors make is Daereungwon, a royal tomb park where large grass covered burial mounds rise like hills across the park. One of them, Cheonmachong, is open for visitors to walk inside, where you can see how gold crowns and other burial artifacts from the Silla period were discovered. Walking through the tombs at sunset, with the light falling between the mounds, feels almost unreal.

Cheomseongdae, a tower for watching stars

Not far from Daereungwon stands Cheomseongdae, considered the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in East Asia. At just over nine meters tall, it isn’t flashy. But knowing that people climbed it more than 1,300 years ago to track the movement of stars changes how you see it. Once the lights come on at night, it becomes one of the best photo spots in the city.

Bulguksa and Seokguram

A short trip outside the city center brings you to Bulguksa and Seokguram, both listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Bulguksa is a temple known for its two stone pagodas, Seokgatap and Dabotap, while Seokguram is a grotto carved into granite, home to a seated Buddha statue. Seokguram in particular is an engineering marvel, it was only recently properly understood that its builders designed a natural ventilation system into the structure to control humidity.

What travelers should know

From Seoul, the KTX gets you to Singyeongju Station in about two hours. The city center is walkable, but if you want to cover more ground, from Daereungwon all the way to Bulguksa, renting a bike is the way to go. Rental spots are everywhere and inexpensive. Make sure to visit Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond in the evening, the reflection of the lit up buildings on the water is one of the most photographed sights in Gyeongju. As for timing, autumn is the best season, the air isn’t humid and the weather makes walking among the tombs genuinely pleasant.

To sum up

If Seoul shows you Korea’s present, Gyeongju shows you where it came from. Walking through history without a glass case in sight is an experience hard to find anywhere else. It only takes a day or two added onto a Seoul trip, so make sure Gyeongju makes it onto your next itinerary.

See you in the next letter.

From Seoul, whigoori
Chimaek: Why Korean Fried Chicken and Beer Go Together

2026-08-30

Dear reader,

Spend a few nights in Korea and you’ll notice a strange pattern. Delivery scooters race through the streets after dark, and outside every convenience store, plastic tables hold the same two things side by side: a box of fried chicken and a can of beer. That’s chimaek, a word made by fusing “chicken” and “maekju,” the Korean word for beer.

What exactly is chimaek

Chimaek isn’t just chicken with a beer on the side. For Koreans, it’s closer to a small ritual. It shows up while watching baseball, after work with friends, or alone on the couch with Netflix on. The unspoken rule is simple: chicken is the main event, beer is its required partner.

Why chicken and beer became a pair

There’s a real history behind this pairing. After the 1997 IMF financial crisis, many laid off office workers opened fried chicken franchises to make a living, and chicken shops multiplied on every street corner. Then came the decisive moment: the 2002 Korea Japan World Cup. Crowds gathering in the streets to cheer ordered chicken and beer together, and that habit spread nationwide. The formula “soccer plus chicken plus beer” stuck, and chimaek has been part of daily life ever since, World Cup or not.

How Koreans actually enjoy it

The chicken itself is a small universe. There’s original fried, yangnyeom (a sweet and spicy glaze), ganjang (soy garlic), and banban, half fried and half yangnyeom, made for anyone who can’t decide. Most people order through delivery apps, though chicken and beer pubs, known as chi hof, are just as common. There’s also a self deprecating joke that goes around constantly: “chicken doesn’t make you fat, I do.” Everyone knows it’s not true, and everyone orders anyway.

What travelers should know

If you’re visiting Korea, chimaek is worth trying firsthand. Delivery apps usually require a Korean phone number and address, so dining in at a chicken pub is the easier option for travelers. Once you sit down, use the call bell to order, the same as any Korean restaurant. For your first order, original fried or banban is a safe start, yangnyeom can run spicier than expected. And no need to worry about tipping, it’s simply not part of the culture here.

To sum up

Chimaek isn’t really about the menu. It’s how Koreans unwind at the end of the day, whether that’s at a baseball stadium, a tiny studio apartment, or a plastic table outside a convenience store. Chicken and beer, and the day somehow feels alright.

See you in the next letter.

From Seoul, whigoori
Chuseok: The Three Days When All of Korea Goes Home

2026-08-28

Dear reader,

If you’re planning a trip to Korea in late September, there’s one word you need to know: Chuseok. Book your KTX ticket a day too late and you might find every seat between Seoul and anywhere else already gone. This letter is about why.

What exactly is Chuseok

Chuseok (추석) is often translated as “Korean Thanksgiving,” and the comparison isn’t wrong, it’s a harvest festival, it’s about family, and it’s about food. But calling it that undersells what actually happens. For three days, an entire country of over 50 million people tries to go home at the same time.

Chuseok 2026: the dates

This year, Chuseok falls on September 25, a Friday, with the official holiday running Thursday, September 24 through Saturday, September 26. In practice, the highways start filling a day or two before that, and don’t fully empty out until a day or two after.

What actually happens during Chuseok

Most Koreans return to their hometown, wherever their parents or grandparents live, no matter how far. Families gather for charye (차례), a table set with food for the ancestors, followed by seongmyo (성묘), visiting and tidying the family gravesite. It’s less solemn than it sounds. Between the rites, there’s a lot of eating, a lot of catching up, and, if you ask most Koreans privately, a lot of relatives asking when you’re getting married.

The taste of Chuseok

If there’s one food to know, it’s songpyeon (송편), half-moon-shaped rice cakes stuffed with sesame, chestnut, or sweet red bean, and steamed over a bed of pine needles, which is where the faint pine scent comes from. Making songpyeon together as a family, usually the night before, is its own small tradition. Older relatives will tell you that whoever shapes the prettiest songpyeon ends up with a beautiful daughter. I’ve never made a pretty one yet.

What this means if you’re visiting

Here’s the practical part. During the holiday itself, most small businesses, local restaurants, and traditional markets close, family time takes priority over serving customers. Department stores, palaces, and most tourist attractions in Seoul, on the other hand, stay open, and with fewer locals around, some of the city’s usually crowded spots get noticeably quieter. The catch is transportation: KTX tickets and rental cars for the days immediately around Chuseok sell out weeks in advance, so if your trip overlaps with it, book early or plan to stay put in one city for those few days.

To sum up

Chuseok isn’t a festival you watch from the sidelines, it’s something that happens inside Korean households, mostly out of sight. But if you happen to be in Korea when it does, you’ll feel it anyway: in the quiet streets, the packed trains, and the smell of songpyeon steaming somewhere nearby.

See you in the next letter.

From Seoul, whigoori
Unmanned Stores in Korea: The Shops Running Themselves

2026-08-27

Dear reader,

Walk down a street in Korea and you’ll eventually notice something odd. The shop door is open, the freezer is stocked with ice cream, a customer or two is inside picking things out, and yet there’s nobody behind the counter. You check out yourself, and the place stays open around the clock. These are Korea’s unmanned stores, and you’ll find them just about everywhere.

Just how many are there

This isn’t just a feeling, the numbers back it up. As of June 2026, one credit card company’s merchant data puts the estimated number of unmanned stores nationwide at around 12,000. By category, laundromats lead at 24 percent, coin karaoke rooms follow at 20 percent, and ice cream discount shops come in at 17 percent.

The landscape is shifting fast, though. Unmanned meal-kit shops, once trendy, made up 12 percent of all unmanned stores in 2022 but had shrunk to just 2 percent by June 2026. Claw machine and gacha arcades, meanwhile, went the opposite direction, jumping from 0.27 percent to 8 percent of the total in the same span, a roughly 30-fold increase. Revenue tells the same story: it’s the only category to show clear growth, with average sales per store up 1.8 times over the past two years.

It all started with claw machines

Interestingly, the whole unmanned-store movement in Korea traces back to claw machines. From 2019, unmanned ice cream discount shops started spreading through neighborhood commercial strips, competing with convenience stores on round-the-clock hours and aggressively low prices. Then in 2020, the pandemic became the real turning point. As people leaned toward contactless everything, unmanned study cafes, photo booths, and meal-kit shops all rose together as the hottest categories for small business owners. Today in Korea, it’s completely normal to eat instant noodles at a convenience store, drink coffee at a cafe, and get a passport photo taken without running into a single employee along the way.

Breaking it down by type

Unmanned ice cream shops are built around a wall of freezers stocked with every kind of ice cream, where customers pick what they want and pay at a self-checkout kiosk. Without labor costs to cover, prices drop noticeably, ice cream that runs 1,500 to 2,000 won at a convenience store can go for as little as 500 to 1,000 won here.

Claw machine arcades are the hottest category right now. Walk past one and you’ll almost always see people crowded around rows of machines big and small. Beyond these two, unmanned laundromats, unmanned photo studios, unmanned cafes, and coin karaoke rooms keep adding to the list.

What’s interesting is how the categories cluster by neighborhood. Areas with lots of single-person households tend to get unmanned laundromats. Busy downtown districts get photo booths. Neighborhoods known for good schools get study cafes. And areas dense with apartment complexes often end up with both ice cream shops and claw machine arcades side by side.

What a traveler might notice

For a traveler, unmanned stores can make for a small, novel experience. You can browse at your own pace without feeling anyone’s eyes on you, and if you’re curious about a price, just scan the barcode at the kiosk, no harm done if you decide to put it back. Checking out yourself also means no language barrier to worry about, which can actually feel like a relief. And having a shop open at 3am when you least expect to need one can come in surprisingly handy on a trip.

There’s a downside too. With no one staffing the place, there’s essentially no security presence, and theft or skipped payments happen often enough to be a known problem. The category’s low barrier to entry also led to a period of brutal oversaturation, and plenty of shops didn’t survive. The ones still standing are increasingly evolving into something closer to a mini convenience store, now selling tanghulu, imported snacks, or pet treats alongside their original product.

To sum up

What started with a few claw machines and a chest freezer has become a fixture of everyday life in Korea. So the next time you’re walking down a Korean street and spot a shop with nobody in it, don’t be thrown off. Just walk in, pick out what you want, and pay at the machine. Doing that alone gives you a small taste of how people actually live here these days.

See you in the next letter.

From Seoul, whigoori
What Is a Call Bell? The Button on Every Korean Restaurant Table

2026-08-11

Dear reader,

Walk into a restaurant in Korea for the first time, sit down, and you’ll notice a small button sitting on the table. It’s tiny, unlabeled, and easy to overlook, but it might be the single object that best sums up how dining works in Korea. Today, let me tell you about this little button: the call bell.

So, what is a call bell?

A call bell does exactly what it sounds like. Press it, and a receiver at the counter or in the kitchen lights up and beeps with your table number, and a staff member comes over. Need water. Want more side dishes. Ready to order. Ready to pay. Koreans reach for this button, without a second thought, for every one of these moments.

Why Korea does it differently

In most restaurants across the West, you’re assigned a server who checks in on your table periodically, or you go find a staff member yourself when you need something. Korea works the other way around. Instead of waiting for a staff member to happen by, the diner calls them over the exact moment they’re needed. And if a restaurant doesn’t have a bell, calling out “jeogiyo” (excuse me) to get someone’s attention is just as normal.

There’s a reason this system took hold here. Korea’s so-called “ppalli-ppalli” (hurry hurry) culture has shaped a restaurant service that runs remarkably fast, the whole arc from ordering to getting your food to paying tends to move quickly. The call bell is part of what makes that speed possible. Instead of staff doing regular rounds of every table, they’re summoned precisely when needed, which makes far more efficient use of a small staff.

What travelers should know

This system happens to work out especially well for travelers, for one specific reason: you don’t have to wait long to pay. In a lot of countries, getting the check and finishing payment after a meal can mean sitting around for a while. In Korea, the moment you press that button, someone comes right over to help you settle up. When you’re done eating, don’t hesitate, just press the bell. If anything, that’s the more polite move here.

If your table doesn’t have one, calling out “jeogiyo!” isn’t rude at all either. It might feel strange the first time, but keep in mind that in Korea, this is simply the normal, everyday way of getting someone’s attention.

A trend that’s still evolving

It’s hard to pin down exactly when the call bell became standard in Korean restaurants, but it’s clearly been a familiar sight for a long time now. What’s interesting is that the same logic is still evolving today. More and more Korean restaurants are taking orders through self-service kiosks, and at some places, serving robots now carry food straight to your table. As labor costs rise and staffing gets harder to find, this same drive toward efficiency has moved on from the call bell to kiosks and robots. In a way, the call bell might have been the first step in Korean dining evolving into what it looks like today.

To sum up

I’ve heard people say they never expected one small button to hold this much of a story. Next time you’re at a Korean restaurant, give that little button a press. And maybe think back to this letter, about how it became such a natural part of the culture here.

See you in the next letter.

From Seoul, whigoori
Busan Travel Guide: Why Korea’s Second City Deserves Its Own Trip

2026-08-05

Dear reader,

Talk to enough travelers planning a trip to Korea, and you’ll notice almost every itinerary starts and ends in Seoul. I get it. Seoul alone could easily swallow a week and still leave you wanting more. But today I want to tell you about a different city, the one where I went to high school: Busan.

A different texture from Seoul

Photo by Daniel Bernard on Unsplash

If Seoul carries the energy of a modern, fast-moving city, Busan has a more classic texture to it. Wedged between mountains and sea, the whole city rises in layers up the hillsides, and its alleys hold onto the marks of an older time. If Seoul shows you Korea’s present, Busan lets you feel a little closer to the road Korea has walked to get here.

A city carved by history

Part of what makes Busan special is the history it carries. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Busan became South Korea’s temporary capital. Refugees poured in from every corner of the country, and the city’s population surged, from 840,000 in 1951 to over a million by 1955. Many of the old alleyways and hillside neighborhoods you still see scattered across Busan today are traces of that era, formed as refugees claimed whatever slope of land they could find.

Photo by Sean Lee on Unsplash

That history is on full display in Gamcheon Culture Village, one of the places most travelers search for before a Busan trip. Pastel-colored houses climb the hillside in neat, stair-stepped rows, which is exactly why it’s earned the nickname “Korea’s Machu Picchu.” What looks today like one of the most photogenic villages in the country actually began the same way as so much of Busan did: Korean War refugees, unable to find space on the already-crowded flatlands, cleared this hillside themselves and built their homes on it. Wander its maze of alleys and you’ll find murals, small galleries, cafes, and the village’s famous Little Prince and fox statue overlooking the sea, a favorite photo spot for a reason.

For something quieter and more solemn, there’s the UN Memorial Cemetery, built in 1951. It’s the only United Nations cemetery in the world, and more than 2,300 soldiers from 11 countries who died fighting in the Korean War are laid to rest there. Knowing that people who came from the other side of the world to defend Korea are buried in this exact spot changes the way you walk through it.

Winters milder than Seoul’s

Here’s a practical reason too. Busan’s climate is shaped by its coastal location, which makes it noticeably different from Seoul’s. The gap between summer and winter temperatures is smaller, and winters here run considerably milder than Seoul’s. When a cold snap grips the rest of the country, Busan tends to be one of the places least affected. So if you’re planning a winter trip to Korea and the cold has you worried, seriously consider working Busan into your itinerary. Same season, much easier weather to walk around in.

A city with the sea

Photo by Seongjin Park on Unsplash

Of course, Busan means the sea. The wide sand beaches and open horizon at Haeundae and Gwangalli give you a sense of openness you simply can’t get in mountain-ringed Seoul. Gwangalli in particular comes alive at night, when the lights of Gwangan Bridge stretch out across the water. Sit there for a while and you’ll understand exactly why people love this city. Just walking along the water to the sound of the waves makes for a completely different kind of trip than Seoul.

A city with warmth

Photo by Lee eunsu on Unsplash

And here’s something no statistic can prove. Busan people carry a particular kind of warmth. People often say the accent is rough but the heart underneath it is warm. Spend time in the markets, restaurants, and back alleys, and you’ll feel that warmth for yourself. It’s the moment Busan stops being just a tourist destination and starts feeling like a city where people actually live.

Also a gateway to Japan

One last practical tip. If your Korea trip includes onward travel to Japan, Busan is a great launching point. Ferries from Busan Port connect directly to Shimonoseki and Fukuoka, and the city’s international airport makes flights to various Japanese cities convenient too. Routing through Busan instead of flying straight out of Seoul can add an interesting twist to your itinerary.

To sum up

Seeing only Seoul isn’t really seeing all of Korea. History, sea, weather, and people, Busan offers all of it in a completely different register than Seoul does. On your next trip to Korea, save a few days somewhere in your schedule for Busan.

See you in the next letter.

From Seoul, missing Busan, whigoori
This Summer, Are We Really Okay?

2026-08-04

Dear reader,

This letter is going to be a little different from the usual ones. Not travel information, not a culture story. Just something honest about what’s been on my mind every day lately.

This summer in Korea has been brutally hot. I was born and raised in Korea, and I’ve said “it’s so hot” every summer of my life. But these past few years, and especially this year, feel different. I already knew summers were slowly changing, but I don’t remember a summer like this one. And right now, as I write this letter, Seoul is under an extreme heat critical warning (폭염중대경보).

Seoul, today

Photo by Muneeb Babar on Pexels

This critical warning tier is actually brand new this year. Korea’s Meteorological Administration overhauled its heat warning system for the first time in 18 years, deciding that the old two-tier system of advisory and warning could no longer keep up with how severe the heat had become, so it created a new top tier. It kicks in when an area already at heat warning level sees a heat index of 38°C, or an actual temperature of 39°C or higher, even for just one day. The message behind it is blunt: stop outdoor activity immediately, for your survival.

Less than two months after this new tier was created, it’s already been triggered multiple times. Late last month, Yangsan in South Gyeongsang Province hit 41.4°C, the highest temperature ever recorded in Korean weather history. Crossing 40°C in July had also never happened before. The government raised its heat wave crisis alert to the highest level, “serious,” and I saw news that it had stayed there for four straight days. Over the past five years, Korea has averaged 19 heat wave days and 14 tropical nights a year nationwide, two to three times more than in the 1970s. And this year’s tropical night count has already surpassed even that, setting an all-time record since record-keeping began in 1973.

Other countries weren’t spared either

Land surface temperature over Europe, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission on 23 June 2026. Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Watching the news, I realized this isn’t just a Korean problem. Europe went through its heat wave earlier this summer, and it was even more brutal. In June, Andújar in Spain hit 45.1°C, and Pissos in France reached 44.3°C, the highest temperature ever recorded in French weather history. When I read that this heat wave had killed more than ten thousand people across Europe, I sat there stunned for a while. More than 5,000 people died in Germany alone, more than 2,000 in France. It was a number that made the climate crisis feel like something no longer distant, not a problem for some other country or some future date.

The ocean wasn’t spared either. I read an analysis showing that the area covered by marine heat waves worldwide had already exceeded projections. The atmosphere and the ocean are both running hotter than normal, at the same time.

Summer wasn’t supposed to go in this order

Korean summers used to follow a set sequence. Monsoon season starts in late June, the real heat arrives once it ends, and by August, typhoons move in and wash the heat away. This year, that entire sequence has been thrown off.

Even the monsoon arrived differently than usual. This year’s monsoon season in Jeju started 11 days later than average, the third-latest start since 1973, and central Korea’s started 6 days late too. High pressure systems that formed near Russia’s Ural Mountains and the Kamchatka Peninsula kept pushing cold air southward, which stopped the monsoon front from properly moving north. It’s no longer a monsoon that arrives and departs on a predictable schedule.

The heat itself has also gotten far worse than before. The records I mentioned above are the proof. The number of people treated for heat-related illness has been climbing sharply too, from 2,818 in 2023 to 3,704 in 2024 to 4,460 in 2025.

And even the typhoons are giving the Korean peninsula a wide berth. The typhoons that should be arriving by August are being blocked by a “double high pressure system” sitting over the peninsula this year. Typhoon Dolphin, the 13th named storm of the season, recently developed into a super typhoon, and most forecast models show it skirting past Korea entirely and making landfall in southern China instead. What’s more ironic is that even if a typhoon did arrive, some analyses suggest it might not relieve the heat at all, it could pump in more moisture and make the heat wave last even longer. The typhoons we always counted on to wash the heat away might no longer be able to play that role.

The thought that keeps coming back

Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels

Honestly, I find myself thinking about this a lot these days. If summers like this keep happening, will I still be able to live in Korea? If the nights when you can’t sleep without air conditioning keep multiplying every year, and if even walking outside becomes dangerous for stretches of the summer, what kind of summers are we heading toward in this country?

I don’t have the answer. But one thing is certain: this isn’t just my problem, or Korea’s problem alone. A summer where more than ten thousand people died in Europe, where ocean temperatures are exceeding projections, where even Korea’s typhoons can’t do what they used to do. This is the era we’re living in right now.

There’s no tidy conclusion to this letter. I just wanted to share an honest thought that came up while living through this summer. And I want to ask you something. What’s summer like where you are? Is it changing there too? I’d love to hear, in the comments, how each of us is finding a way to live through this era of climate crisis.

See you in the next letter.

From a sweltering Seoul, whigoori
The Best Time to Visit South Korea: Why Autumn Wins

2026-08-03
Dear reader,

“When’s the best time to visit Korea?” It’s the question friends visiting from abroad ask me every single time they start planning a trip. Cherry blossoms in spring, energy in summer, snow-covered palaces in winter, Korea has a real case to make in every season, which makes picking just one answer genuinely hard. But if I had to choose, I wouldn’t hesitate. I’d choose autumn. Here’s why.

Why autumn wins

If you’ve been through a Korean summer, you already know. The stickiness of monsoon season, followed by heat and humidity that can feel suffocating. Spring is beautiful, but during cherry blossom season you’re jostling through crowds wherever you go. Winter has its own magic, snow settling over palace rooftops, but the biting cold makes it hard to stay outside and walk for long.

Photo by Pai Pai on Pexels

Autumn sidesteps all of it. The humidity lifts, the sky turns unusually clear and high, and the air settles into that crisp, walkable coolness. From September through November, daytime temperatures in Korea generally range from about 10 to 25 degrees Celsius (50 to 77°F), ideal weather for being outdoors. And unlike spring or summer, both crowds and prices for flights and hotels tend to ease up. Peak foliage season in October does draw some crowds, but September and November are noticeably quieter.

Autumn moves from north to south

Photo by 정규송 Nui MALAMA on Pexels

Korea’s fall colors don’t arrive all at once. They spread like paint, starting in the northern mountains and slowly working their way south.
- Late September: The first color appears in high-elevation northern areas like Seoraksan.
- Mid-October: Mountains around Seoul and central Korea start turning. Places close to Seoul, like Bukhansan and Nami Island, hit their peak around this time.
- Late October to early November: Foliage in central Seoul reaches its peak. The layering of Gyeongbokgung’s red walls with golden ginkgo leaves is the single image most people associate with Korean autumn, and this is exactly when it happens.
- Mid-November: Color reaches Busan, the southern provinces, and finally Jeju, closing out the season.
Time it right and a single trip can let you chase peak foliage across several regions. Just keep in mind that the temperature swings between day and night get significant, especially in November, so layering is essential.

The scene not to miss: palaces and ginkgo trees

Photo by Alexander London on Pexels

If I had to pick one image that captures Korean autumn, it would be the bright yellow ginkgo leaves falling over the red tiled roofs and walls of a palace. Walk through Gyeongbokgung or Changdeokgung in autumn and you’ll catch that exact moment where traditional architecture and the season’s color overlap. It photographs beautifully, but walking through it in person is something else entirely.

Something to plan around

If you’re planning an autumn trip in 2026, there’s one date worth keeping in mind. Chuseok, Korea’s harvest holiday, falls on October 4 to 6. It’s similar to Thanksgiving in the US, and during this stretch, a huge number of Koreans travel to their hometowns or take trips of their own. Popular foliage spots can get considerably more crowded than usual, so if you can, plan your trip around this holiday rather than during it. Weekday visits are also noticeably calmer than weekends, and much better if you want breathing room for photos.

So, when exactly in autumn

If I had to narrow it down further, I’d point you to mid-October through early November. That’s when foliage in Seoul and central Korea hits its peak, and it’s still before the real winter cold sets in, so walking around all day stays comfortable. If Seoul is the center of your trip, aim for this window.

There’s no single right answer, of course. If you want fewer crowds, September or late November are solid choices. If you’re hoping to catch the southern regions too, giving yourself until mid-November gives you more room. But one thing is certain. Not the humidity, not the crowds, not the cold, but the season when Korea looks and feels its best for walking around in. That’s autumn.

See you in the next letter.

From Seoul, whigoori
Free Places to Cool Off in Korea: The Mudeowi Swimteo Guide

2026-08-02
Dear reader,

In my last letter I told you about Korean cicadas and why they sing so loudly. Today let me get more practical about the heat itself. At some point on your trip, you’ll find yourself standing on a street with no shade and no air conditioning in sight. When that happens, there’s something Koreans actually use. It’s called a mudeowi swimteo (무더위쉼터), literally a “heat wave shelter.”

So, what is a heat wave shelter?

A heat wave shelter is an air-conditioned space the government opens up during the hottest months. Community welfare centers, libraries, banks, senior centers, subway stations, and even convenience stores and traditional market service centers are all designated as heat wave shelters across the country. Anyone can walk in and rest for free, no eligibility, application, or reservation required. You just open the door and sit down.

The system was originally built for the elderly and others vulnerable to heat, but in practice, nobody turns anyone away. It’s not at all strange for a traveler to duck in for a few minutes just because it’s unbearably hot outside. During official heat wave warnings, many of these spaces even extend their hours.

Where to go

Here are the ones most useful for a traveler.
- Subway stations. The most accessible heat wave shelter by far. Seoul alone has about 4,000 designated shelters, but in practice, many people head for the subway before they head for a community center. The air conditioning is strong, there’s plenty of seating, and you can walk in anytime. If you’re already getting around by subway, ducking into the nearest station when you’re overheated is an excellent way to cool down.
- Community welfare centers (jumin center). Every neighborhood has one. Look for the heat shelter sign at the entrance, and you’ll find an air-conditioned waiting area inside.
- Libraries. Cool and quiet, good for both escaping the heat and taking a proper break.
- Banks. Many bank lobbies are designated heat shelters too. Just keep in mind banks only operate during business hours.
- Traditional market service centers. An unexpected one, but the customer service office inside a traditional market is often air-conditioned and designated as a shelter. A convenient stop if you’re browsing a market.
How to find one

You can look up exact heat shelter locations through the government’s Safety Didimdol app (안전디딤돌) or Naver Map. Search “무더위쉼터” and nearby shelters show up on the map. If you’d rather check online, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety runs the National Disaster and Safety Portal (safekorea.go.kr), where you can search for shelters by region. That said, both the site and the app lean heavily Korean, so they can be a bit clunky for a traveler. The simplest approach in practice is just to walk into the nearest subway station. In Seoul and other major cities, a station is almost always close by, well air-conditioned, and a space any traveler can use without a second thought.

Heat shelter locator, National Disaster and Safety Portal (국민재난안전포털), Ministry of the Interior and Safety, Republic of Korea

Tips for travelers

Photo by Rüveyda Akkaya on Pexels

A few things worth knowing.
- Subway stations, libraries, and community centers are all walk-in, no permission needed.
- Remember that banks are only open during business hours.
- Department stores and large shopping malls aren’t officially heat wave shelters, but they’re free to enter and superbly air-conditioned, and locals love them for exactly that reason. As the heat has intensified in recent years, Korea even coined a new term for it: mall-cance (몰캉스), a blend of “mall” and “vacance,” meaning spending your day cooling off in a shopping mall. If you’re walking around a department-store-heavy area like Myeongdong or Gangnam, feel free to join the mall-cance crowd yourself.
- Since 2026, Seoul has also introduced small outdoor cooling shelters called haepiso (해피소) in spots like Gwanghwamun Plaza. They’re compact air-conditioned pods where you can step in for a few minutes of relief, worth looking out for if you’re passing through the area.
To sum up

Korean summers are genuinely brutal. But knowing that relief is nearby, and free, makes the whole trip easier. If you’re out walking and the heat gets to be too much, don’t hesitate to duck into the nearest subway station or library. Nobody will think it’s strange. If anything, that’s exactly how Koreans get through the summer.

See you in the next letter.

From a sweltering Seoul, whigoori
Korean Age: The Country Where You’re Born One Year Old

2026-08-01

Dear reader,

Once you’ve spent some time in Korea, foreign friends almost always end up asking me this: “Wait, what’s Korean age? Why do you have a later birthday than me but claim to be older?” Today, let me answer that properly. This is a letter about how Korea counts age, or more precisely, about the fact that Korea used to have two different ages.

Korea used to have two ages

Until quite recently, every Korean person had two ages at once.

The first is se-neun-nai, often called “Korean age.” It was the most widely used method. You’re one year old the moment you’re born. The time spent in the womb already counts as your first year. And regardless of your actual birthday, everyone gains a year together on January 1st. So a baby born on December 31st is only a day old, but the very next day, January 1st, that baby turns two.

The second is man-nai, the international age. You’re zero at birth, and you gain a year on each actual birthday. It’s the same method most of the world uses.

The same person could have two different ages under these systems. For example, someone born on December 31st is still 0 by international age the very next day, but already 2 by Korean age. Depending on when your birthday falls, the gap between the two ages could be one year or two.

So the law changed

On June 28, 2023, Korea decided to clear up the confusion. Under a new law, every legal and administrative context now uses man-nai (international age) exclusively. ID cards, medical records, contracts, and government services are all based on international age. In the single day the law took effect, more than 50 million Koreans became one or two years younger on paper. It made headlines both inside and outside Korea at the time.

That said, the law change didn’t erase the concept of Korean age itself. It disappeared from official documents, but it’s still very much alive in everyday conversation.

So why do people still ask your age?

Here’s where it gets interesting. Legally, everything runs on international age now, but Koreans still want to know each other’s ages, especially when they’ve just met. It’s not rudeness. It comes from the fact that the Korean language itself is structurally tied to age.

Korean has both formal and casual speech, and there are specific terms like hyung, noona, oppa, and unnie used for people older than you. Without knowing someone’s age, it’s hard to decide how to speak to them or what to call them. So when Koreans start a new relationship, they tend to check each other’s age, sometimes subtly, sometimes directly. It’s less about establishing a hierarchy and more like a necessary step for starting a conversation in Korean.

And the age that comes up in these conversations is often still the familiar Korean age, not the legal international one. When someone says “I’m twenty-five,” whether that’s Korean age or international age is usually something you figure out from context. The law changed, but that old sense of being one year old at birth still lingers in Korean language and culture.

Here’s what travelers need to know

As a traveler, you don’t need to memorize any of this. Just remember two things.

First, don’t be thrown off if a Korean person asks your age. It’s not rude. It comes naturally from Korea’s system of formal and casual speech.

Second, don’t be surprised if a Korean person’s stated age is off by a year or two from what’s on their passport. They’re probably speaking in Korean age. No need to think, “wait, that doesn’t add up.”

Even Koreans got confused

Honestly, this system was a headache for Koreans too, for a long time. Before the law changed, a giant panda at a Seoul zoo once had its birthday, and there was genuinely half-joking confusion over whether it was turning four, five, or six. If people got confused, imagine the panda. There was good reason for the law to change after all.

So if someone in Korea asks your age during your stay, feel free to smile and answer: “Which age would you like to know?”

See you in the next letter.

From Seoul, whigoori