TRAVELING LITTLE MORSELS

trip reports

Seoul Day 3: Gangnam Area, COEX Aquarium, Myeongdong Night Market

August 5, 2023

Background

In July 2023, our family visited Seoul, South Korea! This has been at the top of our family wish list for a few years. In the last few years, k-drama watching for Jenn has made it jump higher on the list. We visited in late July and combined this trip with a Hawaii visit and 5 days in Japan.

This post covers our 3rd full day in Seoul and visits to Gangnam, COEX aquarium, and Myeongdong Night Market.

Read all of our 2023 Korea/Japan posts at the following links:

Day 3: Gangnam Area, COEX Aquarium, Myeongdong Night Market

Starfield Library

Gangnam: About a 30 minute cab ride from our hotel area is the Gangnam area. Gangnam means south of the river. This area is very fancy and trendy. It has become more famous since the Psy song, Gangnam style. We spent the morning at the Coex mall. Here we took some pictures and oohed and ahhed at the starfield library. Kind of a bookstore, kind of just an instagram spot, it was a sight included in many of the must-do lists.

Nearby, we also visited a large statue of the gangnam hands where the song played on loop. The kids were actually familiar with the song from past weddings lol!

COEX Aquarium

COEX aquarium: As part of the mall, there is also a huge movie theater and an aquarium in the mall. There are several throughout Seoul. This one was really fun! It had a stamp book to encourage walking through the exhibits and some cool features such as a room with framed art with the fish inside, a turtle section, a mermaid show, and some octonauts theming. The kids appreciated being indoors after a few days of more adult-focused touring. For lunch, we went to the nearby Hyundai Mall food court area where we got a variety of yummy foods like musubi, cutlet, egg, fried chicken, tteokbokki and mochi.

Myeongdong night market: In the evening, we went back to the Myeongdong area where we had a delicious KBBQ grilled dinner and wandered some small market stands selling grilled lobster, fruit, squid, chicken, ice cream, and so much more!