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Dolcori Forest Jeju: Hours, Tickets, and What to Really Expect at Korea’s New Cat Park
When the cats are meowing, my daughter will find them. A new cat-themed park and tourist site opened up on Jeju Island recently so of course, as cat lovers, we had to go check it out. Not real cats mind you, but a whole experience built around five feline characters. It’s called Dolcori Forest (돌코리숲), and it opened in Andeok-myeon, Seogwipo, at the end of April, 2026. The park was built by Smilegate, the gaming company behind titles like Lost Ark, through its subsidiary Cat Park Museum, and it’s the company’s first major offline entertainment project. It’s cute, it’s quirky, and if you love cats as much as my daughter…
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AMORE YONGSAN: Custom K-Beauty At Amorepacific’s Flagship In Seoul
The Amorepacific headquarters in Seoul, Korea is one beautiful building. I’ve visited many times for the Amorepacific Museum of Art, but on a recent visit, I was drawn upstairs to AMORE YONGSAN, the newly reopened and reimagined Amorepacific flagship store. There are plenty of places to go throughout the city for K-beauty shopping, but since Amorepacific owns famous Korean beauty brands like Sulwhasoo, Laneige, Innisfree, COSRX, AESTURA, and HERA among many others, it’s here that you can find some pretty unique experiences along with your beauty shopping needs. You can have your skin analyzed and learn what it may look like in the future, get your scalp checked, create a…
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The Statue of Peace in Korea: Who Is The Girl You Keep Seeing?
You might walk past her without realizing it. Maybe you’re heading to Gyeongbokgung Palace or Insadong when you notice a small bronze girl sitting quietly on a chair, barefoot, fists clenched, staring straight ahead. Maybe you’re visiting a temple in Gunsan and see a barefoot girl standing alone. Or perhaps you’re on a DMZ tour at Imjingak when your guide points out a pair of girls. I’ve lived in Korea for many years and have passed these statues in parks, visited museums dedicated to this history, attended the Wednesday Demonstrations, and even met some of the women these statues are devoted to. More recently, though, I’ve noticed how many visitors…
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Make Your Own Perfume in Seoul: The .NOTE Seongsu Perfume Experience
Seongsu is one of those neighborhoods in Seoul where I always think I can fit in just one more place. One more pop-up. One more shop. One more cafe. And then I’m exhausted. Seongsu-dong is one of those districts in Seoul that is a blast, but your feet will be screaming at the end of a visit. Having visited Seongsu many times, one of the biggest tips I can give anyone planning a day in the neighborhood is to intentionally work places to sit down into your time there. There can be a lot of walking, a lot of standing in lines to get into pop-ups, shopping, and if you…
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Jeju Green Tea Fields: A Local’s Complete Guide To OSULLOC and Beyond!
Jeju Island grows tea all over, a lot more places than most tourists visiting the island ever realize anyway. When I see everyone’s Jeju itinerary, I almost always spot a full day centered on the most popular Korean green tea brand OSULLOC (오설록). OSULLOC built the museum and the marketing that made Jeju green tea fields famous worldwide, and it has absolutely earned the reputation it has. But OSULLOC is only one option when you’re looking for Jeju green tea fields. Across the island there are tea fields with mazes for kids, one with a volcanic cave you can visit, and others that are maybe just a bit more pleasant…
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The OSULLOC Tea Factory In Jeju: A Quieter Green Tea Experience
When most people think of visiting OSULLOC in Jeju, they picture the famous Tea Museum on the island’s west side. It has become one of Jeju’s best-known attractions, with tour buses arriving throughout the day and visitors lining up for green tea ice cream and souvenirs. But there’s now another OSULLOC destination, one on the east side of the island. It’s new, it’s open, and most people don’t know it exists yet. There are far more tea fields on Jeju Island than most visitors realize, so it’s no surprise that the Hannam area remains off the radar. The Hannam Tea Fields in southeastern Jeju are now home to the new…
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SONDLE: The Hidden Korean Designer Brand In Insadong Turning Heritage Into Wearable Art
Walk down the main Insadong street, the most popular spot for buying Korean souvenirs in Seoul, you’ll see vendors selling the same T-shirts from shop to shop covered in Korean flags, cartoon tigers, and the word “Seoul” or “KOREA”. There are some antique shops in between, a few design shops too, but if you want to get something truly unique in the area, you need to know where to go and SONDLE is one of the shops you’ll want to tag for a visit. Tucked away just off the main shopping street is a small shop that most visitors would walk right past without ever knowing it was there. Inside,…
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Acorn Caricature: Seoul’s Nostalgic Answer to the Photobooth
I started noticing these cute little whimsical caricature studios popping up all branded the same and started wondering where these sort of nostalgic photobooths got their start. If you have spent any time scrolling Seoul travel content lately, chances are you have seen one of their caricatures. They are hand-drawn portraits, a little exaggerated like your favorite caricatures from younger days at carnivals and festivals, a lot charming, and usually captioned with someone gushing about how fast it was done. That is Acorn Caricature (도토리 캐리커쳐) and also recognized on Instagram as Uncles Painting. It has become a favorite souvenir from Korea among not only tourists, but locals are also…
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Why Is Everything So Sweet? 11 Korean Foods That Surprise Foreigners
Coming to Korea, I thought I knew how to spot sugary food. I certainly didn’t expect so many Korean foods to be sweeter than the versions I grew up eating. I grew up in the United States, after all. We practically invented neon-colored cereal, frosting that glows in the dark, and desserts so sweet they make your teeth hurt just looking at them. Suffice to say, I thought I knew what to avoid. In Korea, however, it isn’t usually the brightly colored desserts that catch me off guard. It’s the perfectly innocent-looking savory foods. The garlic bread. The sandwich. The pizza. The salad of all things. Foods that have absolutely…
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Sulwhasoo Perfecting Line Review: Veil Primer, Tinted Cream & Cushion Airy
I’ve been using Sulwhasoo for over a decade now, and it wasn’t until I hit my later thirties, heading into my forties, that I really understood why so many Korean women swear by this brand for the long haul. I’ve seen Sulwhasoo products sit on my mother-in-laws bureau for years. I’ve written before about how much I love the First Care Activating Serum VI and my consistent trips to the gorgeous House of Sulwhasoo in Bukchon, but until recently, I’d never actually tried anything from their makeup lines. I’ve always been strictly a skincare girl with this brand. That changed when I signed up for Sulwhasoo’s supporters program here in…
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Share with Homeless: How To Help Seoul’s Homeless Community
Every other Sunday, just outside exit six of Yeongdeungpo Station (영등포역) in Seoul, a group of volunteers gathers to hand out food and treat Seoul’s homeless community with respect and kindness. I saw firsthand what a difference this makes, not just for the roughly 180 people who show up around 5:00pm for food and supplies, but for the volunteers themselves. Seoul’s homeless population is aging and increasingly out of sight, and it’s easy to walk past without ever wondering where people go for support. Tourists often remark that there are no homeless in Seoul, but that’s just not the case. Romank and Jan, the two organizers behind Share with Homeless,…
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The Underwater Tomb of King Munmu and the Yangnam Columnar Joints: A Gyeongju Add-On
Most people heading to Gyeongju are going for the tombs, the relics, the sites with history from 1,000 years ago, but there is a coastal stretch of Gyeongju that I like to add whenever there’s time and a part of it has history dating back millions of years! Worth the Gyeongju detour are: the underwater tomb of King Munmu (경주 문무대왕릉), a submerged royal burial site believed to hold the remains of Silla’s 30th king, and the columnar joints in Yangnam (양남주상절리군), a series of hexagonal volcanic rock formations formed millions of years ago as lava cooled and cracked. Neither site takes long to see, but a trip to the…
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Gamcheon Culture Village: A Guide to Busan’s Rainbow Hillside
If you’ve ever searched for things to do in Busan, Korea, you’ve undoubtedly seen photos of a hillside of homes in pastel colors. Covered in murals, the Gamcheon Culture Village (감천문화마을) has blown up over the last decade into one of the most touristed places on the southern coast. Cute, quirky, colorful. It’s a stop that will make you smile as you wander thanks to the artistic flare that’s been added over the years, but it will also make you sweat, so be prepared. Beyond the light blues, pinks, and yellows, what actually makes Gamcheon different from a lot of Korea’s “Instagram famous” spots is that it’s not a manufactured…
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One Year After Cosmetic Surgery in Korea: The Honest Update Nobody Talks About
You might think that by the time a year has passed after cosmetic surgery, everything has settled, healed, and resolved itself neatly. And in many ways, it has. But there are also things I’m still noticing, still adjusting to, and still thinking about that I wish someone had told me beforehand. If you read my original post about my experience with genioplasty, elasticum, Accu 2 Part, and submentoplasty at AB Plastic Surgery Clinic in Seoul, you already know the week-by-week recovery story. This is the chapter that comes after. A year on, I want to be honest with you in the way that only time allows. Not just the results,…
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The North Korean Human Rights Museum in Seoul: Small But Impactful
In Jongno-gu, Seoul, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (북한인권정보센터) is the mind behind bringing to light the freedom of expression violations in North Korea through an educational space that is open and welcoming to all. What brought chills and a deep sense of authenticity to the museum for me were the real testimonies from North Korean defectors describing harsh imprisonment conditions, backed by decades of human rights research conducted since the early 2000s. Reading and hearing these documented human rights violations left me feeling transported somewhere else entirely, speechless, and more than a little frustrated. Get ready to explore the North Korean Human Rights Exhibition Hall in…
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Doseonsa Temple: Seoul’s Most Sacred Mountain Retreat in Bukhansan
You might think you’ve seen Seoul’s best temples just by visiting the famous ones downtown. Jogyesa Temple and Bongeunsa Temple are certainly the easiest ones to get to, but tucked inside the folds of Bukhansan National Park, about an hour from the city center, is a temple with so many stories to tell. Doseonsa Temple (도선사) is a Buddhist temple in Gangbuk-gu, Seoul, founded in 862 AD, it’s the largest and most historically significant temple complex on the mountain. I’ve visited a lot of temples across Korea, but this one I got to explore with Professor David Mason, an expert on Korean temple culture, so not only was it fulfilling,…
