After the excitement of visiting Hongdae, Insadong and the LINE FRIENDS store, I was’t sure how the evening could get much better than our day had been, but it was even more exciting and fun. From our Air BnB, we walked to the Cheonggyecheon Stream for the Seoul Lantern Festival that takes place for 17 days in November.
Cheonggyecheon is a stream that currently runs through downtown Seoul that had been covered over in the early 1950’s (after the Korean War) by an elevated highway. Fortunately for all the people of Seoul as well as the tourists, in 2003 the highway was removed and 11km of the stream was restored and made into a beautiful space for everyone to enjoy.
It’s an inviting walkway even without a lantern festival, but the lanterns made the environment at night very festive. There were many people there enjoying a night out with family or friends, laughing and chatting and trying to capture the rich glowing colors of the lanterns with their cell phones.
Having fully explored the Lantern Festival we turned our thoughts to coffee and treats which led us a few blocks away to the Hotel Seine Cafe. If some of the images look familiar, it may be because Hotel Seine Cafe was the filming location for the popular Kdrama, Hotel Del Luna. Each floor is like a hotel floor complete with room 404 where human guests could stay should find their way into the hotel.
We had warm drinks and desserts and explored the upper floors. There is a space at the top that becomes a lounge at night and is a great place to look down on the activity below.
For us, shopping often seems to follow food and drink and this night was no exception. Even after 10 pm, there was still a lot of activity on the streets and lots of shops were open.
So, of course, we went ‘shop hopping,’ visiting small marketplace style shops, and we even found a vending machine where we could buy our Chinese fortune for the year. It was pretty spot-on for 2020…
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