I Lived in Seoul for 5 Years. Here Are the 8 Things I Got Wrong About My Own City

I’ve been living in Seoul since 2014. That’s over ten years of commuting, eating, arguing with myself about which subway exit is actually faster, and occasionally being very wrong about my own city.

Honestly, this post is a little embarrassing to write. But I think it’s more useful than another “top ten things to do in Seoul” list that you could find on a hundred other sites. These are real misunderstandings I had — some of them for years — and I’m reasonably sure some of them will surprise you too.

1. I thought Gangnam was just a rich, boring neighborhood

For a long time, I avoided Gangnam. Not deliberately — I just had no reason to go there on weekends. It felt like a business district with expensive coffee. I work in Mapo-gu, I live near Hongdae, and Gangnam felt like a different city.

Then a friend took me to Garosu-gil on a Saturday afternoon in October. I grabbed an americano and we just walked. The tree-lined street, the small independent shops that weren’t the same five chains you see everywhere else — it wasn’t what I expected. I went back three more times that autumn.

The thing is, Gangnam isn’t one place. It’s enormous. There’s the finance-and-towers Gangnam and then there’s the Apgujeong side, the Cheongdam side, the parts that have nothing to do with the K-pop industry tour buses parked out front. I needed someone to actually take me there before I understood that. If you’re deciding where to stay, my guide to the best areas to stay in Seoul breaks down each district honestly — including which ones sound good but aren’t great for first-timers.

2. I thought the bus system was just a slower version of the subway

I rode the subway exclusively for my first two years. The bus felt complicated — different colored buses, different route numbers, no clear system I could figure out from a map app. So I just didn’t bother.

What I was missing: for certain cross-city routes, the express buses (the red ones — 광역버스) are genuinely faster than the subway. Not marginally. Substantially. There are specific corridors where the bus skips the underground completely and takes the highway, and it’s a different experience.

I found this out accidentally when I missed a subway connection and a coworker suggested the 9408 bus. I got home 15 minutes faster than usual. I’d been taking the long way for two years. For getting around the city in general, the Seoul subway guide still covers the core network — but now I’d also tell you to pay attention to the red bus routes if you’re in the outer districts.

3. I thought you couldn’t just walk into most Korean restaurants without a reservation

This one embarrassed me when I found out how wrong I was. I’d heard about restaurants with hour-long queues, places you needed to book weeks in advance, and I generalized from that to assume Seoul restaurants were all like this. I turned down suggestions from friends because “we’d need a reservation.”

Honestly, most places in Seoul — including very good ones — don’t take reservations at all. The concept of booking a table at a neighborhood 순대국밥 place would confuse the owner. The queue culture exists for specific, famous spots. Maybe 5% of restaurants. I was applying that 5% logic to everything.

The ones that actually require advance booking are either high-end omakase or very specific popular restaurants that have earned their wait. You’ll know when you need to plan ahead. Most of the time, you don’t.

4. I thought Itaewon was the best place to find international food in Seoul

This was true in 2014. I’m not sure it’s as true now, which is kind of a big deal here if you eat out as much as I do.

The international food scene spread significantly. There are Vietnamese places in Mapo that I think are better than anything I ate in Itaewon last year. There’s a Turkish restaurant near Hongik University that a friend from Ankara told me was surprisingly accurate — her words. The Ethiopian place near Hyehwa that I stumbled on because I got on the wrong bus is better than anything in the Itaewon “restaurant row.”

Itaewon still has things you can’t find elsewhere in Seoul. But treating it as the only destination for non-Korean food was costing me good meals. The city diversified. I was slow to notice.

5. I thought Korean street food was best in the evening

I’m not sure how I formed this opinion. Probably from going to night markets a few times and extrapolating. The truth is, some of the best street food — specifically the pojangmacha carts near office buildings — exist specifically for the lunchtime and early afternoon crowd. By the time I’d show up in the evening, some of them were already sold out of whatever was worth eating.

The 계란빵 (egg bread) cart near my office runs out by 2pm. The tteokbokki place three blocks from Sindorim station that coworkers recommend — peak time is actually 11:30am to 1pm. I know this now. I knew none of it for the first three years. And if you want to know what’s actually worth eating before you start wandering, the Korean food guide covers 30 dishes with the actual places I’d go back to — not just names on a list.

6. I thought I understood the concept of 눈치 (nunchi)

I’m not sure how to explain this in English, but 눈치 is something like reading the room — the ability to sense what someone wants or feels without them saying it directly. I thought I understood it because I grew up here and I’m Korean. I assumed it was automatic.

Then I changed jobs and realized my 눈치 was calibrated for my previous workplace, not for everywhere. The way a senior colleague signals they want to leave a team dinner early. The way someone saying “it’s fine” means two completely different things depending on context, tone, and whether they made eye contact. I’d been operating on assumptions that were specific to one environment for years.

This isn’t a tourist tip. I’m including it because it changed how I think about giving advice to people visiting Korea. When I say “Koreans do X,” I’m usually describing my specific workplace, my neighborhood, my generation. Seoul is not monolithic. I’m one data point.

7. I thought the Han River parks were mostly for families

I walked past Yeouido Hangang Park probably a hundred times before I actually went in and sat down. It felt like a weekend family activity, not something a tired office worker does on a Tuesday evening.

I was wrong about this completely. The parks are genuinely good for being alone in a crowd — if you know what I mean. You can buy a convenience store snack, find a bench that’s not too close to anyone else, and watch the river without anyone expecting anything from you. After work on Friday, this is sometimes exactly what I need. I’ve taken that forty-minute walk from the station more times than I can count over the last three years.

I don’t know why I waited so long. Probably the same reason I waited so long for Garosu-gil — I assumed I already knew what something was before I actually tried it.

8. I thought living here meant I could answer most questions about Korea

This is the one I’m most wrong about, and I’m still wrong about it.

Living in Seoul for ten years means I know my Seoul — a specific commute, a specific set of neighborhoods, a specific social world of office colleagues and a handful of friends. It doesn’t mean I know Busan. It doesn’t mean I understand what life is like in Gangwon-do. It doesn’t mean I know the neighborhoods of Seoul I’ve never had a reason to visit.

When someone asks me “what’s Korea like?” I’ve learned to say: I know what my part of it is like. I can describe Line 2 at 8:45am. I can tell you which convenience store near Hapjeong has the best selection of triangle gimbap. I can tell you that the samgyeopsal place near my old office in Yeouido was objectively better than any samgyeopsal I’ve had since, and that I’ve never been able to find it again despite trying twice.

That’s the thing about living somewhere long enough. You get specific. The general stuff — “Seoul is safe,” “Koreans are hardworking,” “the food is good” — that’s true, but it’s also not what I actually know. What I actually know is much smaller and much more specific. And honestly, that’s probably more useful to you than the general version anyway.

Last updated: May 2026 — I verified the bus route thing again last week. Still faster.

About Jay Han
Jay has lived in Seoul for over 10 years and works as a marketing professional. He started Korea Hub to share the kind of honest, specific information he wishes he’d had when navigating Korean culture, food, and travel for the first time. Not a travel blogger — just someone who actually lives here.
More about Jay →