A Quick Trip To Gwangju, South Korea

This autumn I finally made it down to a city that I’ve been wanting to visit for years: Gwangju!

I took a 10am KTX from Seoul Station that had me at Gwangju Songjeong Station a little after noon. I headed straight across the street to the Songjeong 1913 Market. This used to be a popular market for the city, but as grocery stores rose in popularity, people didn’t do their daily shopping at the market anymore. So in 2012, the city of Gwangju decided to remake the space with a focus on history. Now, the shops all give a little feeling of time travel with traditional sweets and photo booths.

My first stop was Kyeran Bap, a store specializing in rice and tuna wrapped in a thin layer of egg. It’s similar to kimbap, but instead of seaweed (kim), it is egg (hence the name of the store lol it’s literally “egg rice”). Apology for the lack of photos, I ate it too quicky ;)

After that, I went to Gaeng Sonyeon which is a store devoted to one of my favorite Korean sweets, Yanggaeng. Yanggaeng is sort of like a jelly made from red beans. This store sells them in small spheres and in all different flavors! They shop owner was so nice and gave me lots of sample before I decided on kiwi, black sesame, and yuja. The black sesame was hands down the best!

Other shops include noodle restaurants, bakeries, and fish cake stands. There’s even a ramen shop that has different instant ramens from all over the world! Because of the virus, a lot of things were closed, but overall it was still a cute stop since I was on that side of town anyway!

I still had some time before I could check into my AirBnb, so I took the subway over to the opposite side of the city to visit Wood Like, a sweet little cafe. I had the peach ade which is normally too fizzy for me (I can’t handle carbonation) but this was delicious! It even came with nearly half a peach sliced on top! The cafe is dog friendly too so I had a cute poodle keep me company :)

After the cafe I headed to my Airbnb, dropped off my things, and headed back out to Daein Market. The market was a little slow but was fun to walk through just the same. I then headed to the 5.18 Memorial Museum which I can’t recommend enough. The museum is free and supported by UNESCO, because the Gwangju Uprising of May 18 is recognized as a significant movement for democracy by the organization. The museum is 3 stories and the first two have almost everything translated into English as well. It was a really incredible museum, though also incredibly gruesome and heartbreaking. If you want to understand the spirit of Gwangju, knowing about its history is essential and this museum in the heart of town does an incredible job.

After the museum I got dinner at 1960 Cheongwon Momil and then started walking about the Chungjang area. My first stop was a cool shop called None. It’s a mix of Hongdae and Myeongdong with busy streets filled with young people, but what I couldn’t get over (and later my husband remarked on this as well!) is how cool everyone was. Gwangju has a lot of independent designers and clothing stores so the streets were packed with shops offering the trendiest clothing, vintage treasures, and more. Everyone on the street looked so fashionable and, as my husband said, trendier than Seoul. This is definitely the place to shop or just people watch!

I got an apple crisp and a tea at Warehouse, which was a cool cafe in the Chungjang area! Very delicious :)

After a busy day, I wiped out and went home to sleep. I would be heading to the Boseong Tea Farms and Damyang’s Bamboo forest the next say so I needed rest :) After the tea farm, I stopped in Night Walkers for an earl grey latte before going to sleep again lol!

On my last half-day in Gwangju, my husband Kurt decided he wanted to take the train down to visit too! After coming back from Damyang, I headed straight to the 5.18 Memorial Park (and rose garden next door) which is a huge park in the center of the city. It has a large memorial dedicated to those who fought in the 5.18 uprising, including a list of students that lost their lives - many elementary students were on the list. It was a somber but beautiful monument.

Once Kurt arrived, we headed back to the Cheongjang area to people watch and get a cup of tea. If you’re looking for fashionable men’s clothes, Gwangju is the place! Usually in Seoul the men’s shops are outnumbered but in Gwangju I felt it was 50/50!

We ended up heading back to Damyang the next day so that was sort of the end of our Gwangju trip, but it was a lot of fun! It’s a city with a lot of history and character and should definitely be added to your list of places to visit :)