So, I will tell you about some places in Seoul which are related to kpop, super junior, or well… their cafes and restaurants. Kindly check this out.
1. Kona Beans
Some of you kpopers might know this café well, since it is owned by Sungmin-Kyu-Leeteuk’s mothers. I wont tell much about the café itself, I just want to share some of my know-how about the address and the direction to get there.
Address :
Kona Beans Apgujeong. 1F, 640-9, Sinsadong, Gangnam Gu, Seoul, South Korea.
How to get here :
- Take a subway to ‘Apgujeong’ station on orange line, then take exit 2 from the station.
- You’ll be walking up the stairs and then directly make a u-turn after you go up and just keep walking down the path walk straight
- You’ll see a ‘Hyundai Oil-Bank’ infront of you while you walk straight, then cross the street right infront of ‘Hyundai Oil-Bank’
- You’ll easily see ‘Kona Beans’ board name at the corner of the street after you turn right, but if you’re not sure, you can look whether there’s this big ‘Jindo’ building infront of you or not, if yes then you’re on the right track.
Kona Beans is a very comfy café to be visited. It has its own special aura of super junior! You’ll easily spot everything there are all about sungmin-kyuhyun-leeteuk. And I totally recommend you all to taste the sweet potato latte, since it’s the yummiest! Well, for me. Or also you can try some hot choco, it’s so tasty I couldn’t get my self enough of it. And for additional info, if some of you intended to meet one of the lovely moms there, here’s their schedule on the café :
• Sungmin mom : Wed – Fri
• Kyuhyun mom : Tue – Sat
• Leeteuk mom : Mon - Thu
They usually come to the café on their own schedule, but somehow if one of them can’t make it on the day, then they’ll be replaced by other mom, or they’ll just send their sons or daughters to go. Lucky me everytime I come, not only those lovely moms who came, but also their son and daughter (in my case they were Sungjin and Ahra).
2. Grill5 Taco
Here I finally made it to come! Yes. This restaurant is owned by Lee Donghae as all of you probably know it. This is a special restaurant, I guess. And a must-visited one if you (kpopers and sj fans) come to South Korea. We can eat some delicious pasta, also special pizza, and taco, and etc. Tho for me it’s kinda pricey but it is worth to try since all of them are so yummy! Enough with the chitchat, now a know-how to get here.
Address :
Cheongdam-dong No. 88-10 Building 1st Floor
How to get here :
- Take a subway to ‘Apgujeong Rodeo’ station on yellow line
- Get off there and take exit no. 4
- Walk straight after you getting out from the station
- Keep your eyes on your left side of the road and find this ‘Burger King’ restaurant
- Turn left when you find ‘Burger King’ and just walk straight about 100m then you will find ‘Grill5’ on your left side
Grill5 is a really unique restaurant. Because the decoration is so nice and mostly different (I think). And for you who likes to collect some of merchandise of oppars café, then you’ll find some cute mugs and tumblers here. Also, if you lucky, Donghae’s mom herself will be serving you with your orders and have a lil chats. I met her there and she is super friendly. Like mother like son. For the food and beverages, just order anything, I guess I like everything in Grill5 since they’re all so tasty.
3. SM Building
Well, for mostly SMTown shipper, life can’t be perfect if you come to South Korea and not leaving your marks here, am I right? So I guess all of you need to know how to get here. Actually, SM building and Grill5 are kinda close to each other. You just need to walk the opposite direction from Grill5.
Address :
Cheongdam-dong 105-5 Gangnam-gu, Seoul South Korea
How to get here :
- Take a subway to ‘Apgujeong Rodeo’ station on yellow line
- Get off and take exit 2 from the station. (If you come right away from Grill5, just walk back to the exit of the station you took before, and walk straight until you find the 1st big intersection. Cross the street and walk to your right)
- From exit 2, just walk straight, you’ll be passing ‘Galleria’ and ‘KIA’ while you walk
- Then you’ll find this huge banner of SM Artist on your right. Usually they put some pictures of their artist who make their comeback at that time. This is used to be the old SMTown building, but now they renew it for some trainee and artists.
- Right after you find this SM old building, you’ll see a left turn. Make a turn there and just walk straight
- You’ll find some highschools and middleschools while you walk. It’s cheongdam high school and middle school. If you do, then you are on the right track.
- Just keep walking straight until you get to the very end of the road and find this intersection. Make a turn to your right. You’ll be passing another school, it’s an elementary school if I’m not mistaken
- Keep walking straight from there. You’ll walk through some apartments as well.
- After few apartments, look straight to the street and you’ll find SM Building on your right side, with it’s special flags/banner of SM Entertainment and it’s blue building.
Fans usually gather around infront of the building or at the small park infront of the building. Sometimes the security guards shoo fans out if there are too many people there, so yea just watch it out. Also, if there’s some KIA cars or big vans come in, be aware. Because usually SM Artists ride those kinds of cars to get to SM.
If you find yourself bored waiting, feel free to hang out in the convenience store around. Just go to the side of SM Building and walk out through the back gate, which is usually be used as parking lot for managers, staffs, and sometimes artist personal cars. You’ll find a convenience store across the street. Also, you can find ‘FNC Entertainment’ as you walk out from SM Building. It locates close to each other. If you lucky, you can meet those handsome trainees from FNC. And got to chill together in the convenience store. They hang around a lot.
Also, SM Building locates near to ‘JYP Entertainment’ and ‘CUBE Studio’.
Here is the direction:
- Go to the back side of SM Building
- Walk to your left from the gate
- Take a right turn at the 1st intersection you find
- Walk straight and take a left turn at the 1st intersection
- Go straight and take another right turn at another intersection
- There you’ll find some café and restaurants, just keep walking straight and you’ll easily spot ‘JYP building’ with their own huge banner infront of DunkinDonuts, and on the left side you’ll find ‘Cube Studio’ where you can buy a cup of coffee and hang around at the CUBE café while listening to cube artists songs. If you lucky, you can also find some of the artists walk around there.
4. Mouse Rabbit
Another café from sj oppa. It’s now yesung’s as we know. For me, this café is the easiest to go and no need to walk too far to get here. Not really sure about the address, but I’ll just tell you the directions to get here.
How to get here :
- Take a subway to ‘Konkuk University’ station on green line
- Get off and take exit no.2 from the station
- Walk out from the station, and go to your left after you coming down the stairs from station
- Just keep walking straight. The crowd here it’s kinda confusing, since it’s campus area so it’s a lil crowded here. Just don’t be confused with all of those stores and shops around
- Keep your eyes to your left side until you find this ‘Samsung Mobile Building’
- Turn left at the alley infront of ‘Samsung Mobile Building’ and Mouse Rabbit is right behind it. The café looks smaller than the one in yesung photos and other, so you need to be careful of finding it.
This is the map which yesung shared before :
*Green - Konkuk University Station exit 2
*Blue - Samsung Mobile Building
*Red - Mouse Rabbit
I don’t know why, but I guess from all of sj’s café, this is the coziest café for me. The decorations are so nice I don’t wanna leave. Also the cakes are so tasty. The price is reasonable, and kinda cheaper than others, so everything is awesome here….. for me. If you come on summer or spring, I recommend you to try their strawberry smoothies, because it is sooo tasty. Also the green tea is sooo suitable for winter if you get cold. A lil’ advice, since yesung is getting his time off from performing, he usually come to Mouse Rabbit on the weekend, so if you want to meet him, standby in Mouse Rabbit on the weekend around afternoon until evening. If you lucky, you will able to meet him and chitchat with him.
5. Tous Les Jours
It is another bakery from sj. Hyukjae’s. The place is actually kinda far from others, but no doubt that this bakery also has its own charm so that I’ve never got bored to come here. Well, here it is the know-how to get here.
Directions :
- Take a subway to ‘Guro Digital Complex’ station on green line
- Get off and take exit no.2 from the station
- After you walk out from the station, you’ll see this bus station infront of you. Take a bus from here to avoid walking too far from the subway station.
- Standby at the front side of the bus station and take bus no.5616
- Get off at the 4th stop at ‘Manmin Jungang Church’. The route will be : Guro digital complex >> Korea Industrial Complex Corp E.Mart >> Digital Industrial Complex >> Manmin Jungang Church
- Get off at ‘Manmin Jungang Church’ and look at the street opposite you. There is this ‘Ace High End’ tower
- TLJ is located right at the corner of this tower, so you need to cross the street and walk straight to the tower then you can see TLJ in the left corner
TLJ is not a big bakery sort of like that, so usually people just buy some bread and take it along with them. But since it’s hyukjae’s bakery, so you probably want to hang out for a bit while eating some special bread and enjoying some tasty coffee. It is a cozy place indeed, but I guess you wont be able to stay that long since lots of employee around that area will come and go getting busy. But it is worth it if hyukjae is there somehow. Yes. But if hyukjae is coming, usually you just able to come for about a minute, buy some breads and chitchatting with hyukjae for a few seconds, but that is more than awesome, tho. Been there, done that. If hyukjae comes, TLJ usually announce it on their twitter or something, so you probably need to come as early as you can, because they have this queue numbers that they’ll give in the morning so that only those people who got that queue numbers will able to come in, buy some bread, and meet hyukjae. Good luck!
6. KBS SUKIRA
This time it’s not about café, but Super Junior’s radio. Yes, you’ll need to come to Sukira at least once while you are in South Korea, rite? So, not much chittychat, let’s check the direction.
Address :
Seoul, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Yeouido-dong 18
Directions :
- Take a subway to ‘National Assembly’ station on line 9
- Get off and take exit no.4 – Korea Broadcasting System (KBS)
- After you get out from the exit, just walk straight until you find the 1st intersection of the road. Turn right there and keep walk straight
- Then you’ll find another intersection. Firstly cross the street and walk to your left. That building infront of you is KBS Building.
- Just keep walking straight until you find another intersection. Turn right here and walk straight.
- Keep your eyes to your right side, when you find these stairs to go up to the bulding, then you are on the right place. Go upstairs through the stairs. Then go to your left. Don’t come inside the building, unless you want to see Ryeowook coming from there. You can watch sukira by just standing infront of this big window of the studio. So, before coming in to KBS building you better ‘book’ your seat first by leaving some of ur things infront of the window studio.
For information, Sukira starts at 10pm, but Ryeowook usually come around 9.45 pm or 9.50 pm before the radio starts. So he usually walk through in the KBS building when arriving, if you want to see him coming in, you can go in to KBS building and wait inside. But be careful because after Ryeowook comes, then all of the fans will rushing back to their ‘seats’ infront of the window studio. So, take care of your self and your things.
7. Boy Who Cried Wolf Store
This time, the store is EXO’s. This is actually some kind of pop up store or outlab, so it’s not usually open all for long. This store is contained lots of unique things, like shirts, sweaters, jackets, hats, beanies, even candles and lipbalm. Also they sell these unique beverages with exo’s member names on it, like tao-ppucino, chan-berry, d.o-pizza and etc. So here it is the know-how to get here.
Address :
516-12 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
How to get here :
- Take a subway to ‘Sinsa’ station on orange line
- Get off and take exit no.8
- After going out from the exit, go straight towards the directions you facing
- You’ll find some intersections on the road, at the 2nd intersections turn left. Or after you find this, turn left
- After turning left, you’ll find yourself at ‘Dongsandaero 11-gil’. Walk straight until you see ‘GS25’ store at the right corner of the road
- Turn right when you see ‘GS25’ and the intersection beside it
- Keep walking straight after turning right, then you’ll find this 1st intersection infront of you, turn left
- Then walk straight again until you find another intersection, turn left here and you’ll find BWCW infront of you
Here, if you are exo fans then you’ll feel sooo happy, since everything here are all about exo and their polaroids are all over the place. It looks more like a warehouse or something since the design is kinda weird, but it is the charm of this place, tho. Well, early warning, if you want to buy things here, then you’ll probably need to take all of your savings since everything looks nice but so pricey. So yea, be prepared.
Okay, I guess that is all I can share from those kpop journey in South Korea I did. Guess it'll become a helpful thing for you who probably got this plan of coming to every places that related to kpop, SJ, or exo. Feel free to ask me if anything here confusing you.
Yea, happy kpoping in Seoul! :)
xoxo.
Comments
aku mau tanya dong dear ,km kalau beli tiket konser di seoul gimana caranya ya? karena aku berencana nonton ss6 seoul september nanti (aku belum pernah nonton di seoul langsung, jadi gatau) ..mohon dimaklumi yaa..sorry aku kalau ganggu T_T