Hannah Sung, Lainey Lui, Ann Pornel and Liz Kim initially became friends through text messages exchanged during the pandemic. They took their friendship to the next level and went on a girl’s trip to Seoul.Photography by Hannah Sung
If you’ve ever thought, Wow, one dinner isn’t enough to catch up with my girlfriends, consider a trip.
I could tell you the story of my own group – how our friendships began with text messages during the pandemic or how we bonded over what it’s like to be an Asian woman on Canadian television. But all you really need to know is that my gang of girlfriends finally took that trip out of the group chat, across the world to Seoul.
The beauty of a girls’ trip is simple: It’s spending time together. The added beauty of doing it in South Korea was that everything was so easy. The city runs efficiently, is easily navigable by public transit and is filled with opportunities to play: parks, interesting alleys, museums, nice hotels and copious opportunities to eat well.
Love locks cover a fence in Nam San, Seoul.
Our love of BTS, Korean food, skin-care trends, K-dramas (and comedies) had been fuelling dreams of this trip for years.
We chose to check it all out in early spring. Lainey Lui was our de facto leader, taking on the role of unni, or older sister. Liz Kim, our beloved maknae (a Korean word denoting the youngest member of the group), was our soft heart and documentarian (she brought at least three cameras). Ann Pornel was our skin-care expert, knowledgeable about every active ingredient and its function. (I admired this use of her science degree.)
And me? I flowed like water, happy with any destination.
It isn’t easy for the daughters of immigrants to just leave our responsibilities behind, to chase joy and eat our faces off, so I think we can all take a bow here.
As we spent long days of leisure together, there were many times we laughed until we cried. We even climbed a mountain, Nam San, to attach a love lock among a sea of professed love. I felt so grateful to be there, together.
All you can eat
Ann Pornel and Lainey Lui get ready to dig into dakgalbi, a hand-cut noodle soup, at Yoogane in Seoul.
Arriving in Myeongdong at night is a full leap into modern Korean pop culture. The neighbourhood is a tourist-heavy hot spot of bright lights, music, shopping and street food. Ann and I arrived on the same plane, and our first meal was what everyone should have getting off a 15-and-a-half hour flight: saucy Korean fried chicken and a cold beer.
Every single meal thereafter hit a similar note of perfection, whether it was cheese-filled tonkatsu, Michelin-rated kalguksu (hand-cut noodle soup) or dotorimuk, a salad of acorn jelly and frilly lettuce, slathered in a spicy, sweet sauce made with red pepper. When Liz and I shared a quick triangle gimbap (rice wrapped in seaweed) on a street corner, we marvelled at how it hit the spot like no convenience store food at home.
For Korean tabletop barbecue, we grabbed a table at Yoogane, a chain known for its spicy chicken with vegetables (you can add cheese, ramen noodles, rice and tteokbokki, or rice cake). Lainey had us raise our soju glasses and gave a heartfelt speech about gratitude, love and being together, after which we all laughed at her for sipping it. As Koreans say: “One shot!”
Café culture
A bear-shaped choux pastry at Coconut Box café, which serves drinks and animal-themed pastries in a cabana-style lounge.
South Korea’s baked goods are also absolutely worth writing home about. Stroll through Seongsu-dong, the trendy haven for fashion-forward youth, or Ikseon-dong, a maze of alleyways lined with traditional Korean homes-turned-shops, and you can spot lineups outside TikTok-famous cafes, the smell of butter providing a hit of dopamine.
At Soha Salt Pond, in Ikseon-dong, the line moves fast and cold coffees have thick, whipped cream the consistency of liquid marshmallow (it’s a sweet treat more than a waker-upper). There, we feasted on salt bread, a trendy pastry that seems to have all of Seoul in its grip, with a texture that’s a mix between a brioche bun and a croissant, topped with a pinch of thick salt crystals resting on its paper-thin crust.
Our only thumbs-down eating experience of the entire trip was a bakery bun as bland as a day-old dinner roll and shaped like an adorable bear, wrapped with twine and served by workers in cottage-core bonnets. Perhaps I should have known.
But I had another bear-shaped choux pastry (I seem to have a weakness) that was flaky, subtly sweet, creamy and delicious. We nabbed these at Coconut Box café, where you can enjoy fancy drinks and animal-shaped pastries in a cabana-style lounge.
Jjan! (Cheers!)
Ann is a brilliant traveller who comes prepared with practical tips and info on cool spots. She guided us to what became our favourite bar, a speakeasy in Chungmuro called Bar Sook Hee.
We rode up an elevator in an office-retail building, promptly feeling stranded in an unlit hallway, confused about where to go. We even opened a closet. Finally, we found the hidden entrance that swung open into a dimly lit bar specializing in seasonal cocktails. I chose one that featured gamhongro, a herbaceous, old-fashioned Korean liquor made of rice, millet, cloves and cinnamon. It’s an alcohol so obscure that my Korean cousins have never had it (and they like to drink).
But in hypermodern Seoul you can see a growing appreciation and rediscovery of tradition everywhere, including at the bottom of a glass in a trendy bar.
A skin-care wonderland
Liz Kim treated herself to a gold leaf facial.
Anyone who watches K-pop or K-dramas can see that Korean beauty standards are exacting. Above all, clear and supple skin is king. The South Korean medical aesthetics market was worth US$572-million in 2023. (A can’t miss spot in Seoul is the Olive Young cosmetics emporium, filled with aisles upon aisles of performance-driven products.)
As nervous as I was to be initiated, I was game to see what a doctor would recommend for my 47-year-old face. I chose according to price, and went for a laser treatment to minimize pores and reduce age spots (that’s a humbling sentence to write) as well as a skin booster treatment derived from salmon DNA.
After some numbing cream, both treatments were administered with what I can only describe as a staple gun. You bet it hurt, and for this privilege I paid $1,200. That’s why I’m happy to report that the treatments delivered. Of course, the results are only noticeable to me. So I think, moving forward, my main beauty regime will be to stop looking at myself.
Top of the K-pops
Pornel and Lui with the handprints of BTS members Suga and Jung Kook.
No surprise, as friends who originally came together through our shared love of BTS, the forever kings of K-pop, a shining jewel in our week was watching a taping of MCountdown, a weekly, live, televised K-pop performance show. We sat in the front row, watching groups making their debut alongside established acts such as Le Sserafim and the dance phenom Bada Lee. TEN, of the group NCT, blew us away with his stage presence. It wasn’t lost on us that this show, an engine of the industry, is one that global superstars BTS had graced earlier in their career.
K-pop performers gear their precision choreography, hair and makeup to the cameras, but being so close to the stage was a reminder that they’re human and, in some cases, incredibly young. The crowd was diverse, loud and remarkably compliant. We were told to put our phones away (no photos, no videos) and everyone did. The crowd also showed up for the bands with dedicated fan chants, which is a true sign of K-pop.
Shiny tickertape rained down to close the show, and I found pieces in my pockets and bag for days afterward, to my delight. They were tangible reminders that we had made this trip happen, despite all the distractions and duties in our lives. In a world that becomes ever-more complicated, the beauty of our girls’ trip isn’t that we were avoiding life, it’s that we were really living it. And doing it together, whatever else our worlds entail.
If you go
You will need a cellphone for everything in South Korea, from navigation to making dinner reservations. Purchase an eSIM or find a kiosk at Incheon International Airport for a SIM card. Also, pick up a T-Money card at the airport and load it for use on public transit. (I spent less than $10 a day on subways and buses.) You’ll need to download some new apps.
- Don’t rely on Google Maps as it isn’t up to date here and doesn’t give walking directions. Instead, use Naver Maps to get around.
- The Papago app is great for translation. In camera mode it can translate menus and museum placards on the spot.
- If you expect to message with locals, including businesses, try the popular KakaoTalk messaging app.
- Uber is available, but to call a cab you’ll need KakaoTaxi.
Cultural customs
- Bow upon greeting (hello and goodbye), when thanking someone and when saying sorry.
- To be polite, use two hands to pass or receive things from others (such as receiving a gift).
- When pouring a drink (which you should do for others before you pour your own), use both hands or the physical shorthand of touching your free hand to the elbow of the arm you’re using to pour.
The writer received some support for expenses from the Korea Tourism Organization. It did not review or approve the story before publication.
