Seoul, South Korea (Republic of Korea)

Seoul has been full of surprises - some great and some kinda hard. The great parts are that it is an amazingly easy city to get around, the people are very nice, the city is full of free/low cost indoor and outdoor activities, and there is all the K beauty skin care. The down sides have largely been trying to find vegan and/or vegetarian food. This isn’t like Tokyo, where a vegan shop seems to be on every corner and you can easily tell what is vegan or vegetarian based on food labels. The other downside is the air quality - it has been in the moderate to bad essentially the entire month (May/June) and my upper respiratory tract is not happy.

All that being said - we will definitely come back to Korea and get outside the main cities to see more of the country. Hopefully vegan/vegetarian will be more widespread by then! :)

We stayed up near the palace where everyone wears Hanboks (traditional Korean dress) and I reallly can’t recommend this area more…at least for people who want to be in a quieter neighborhood with easy access to the subway. If you want the full of people areas, head to Myeongdong and/or Gangnam (same for tons of shopping).

There was a great vegan food tour we took on AirBNB ← really, I do recommend it. That was the ONLY way we were going to be able to try Korean street food. Here is his link and DO go very hungry because these are some appetizer size things, but then multiple full dishes, and a bit of alcohol (which you don’t have to try, if you aren’t a drinker). https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/5592743 I don’t get anything for this, it was just a VERY good tour.

A couple places that we found were:

For very good Inari (we ate that multiple times): little shop on the left as you go in past the bakery on the way to Hanoro Mart (4, Sajik-ro 8-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul) - she does take credit card.

Pizza/beer: Seoul Gypsy Fermateria: 62 Jahamun-ro 3F, Seoul 03034 South Korea

Soiroum: vegan cafe - very yummy bowls and vegan burgers. https://map.kakao.com/?itemId=1943608911&t_src=share&t_ch=via_another_app&t_obj=place

Salady ← very good priced chain salad place, we got takeout from here a ton.

Olive Better ← some protein shakes and protein bars

Honestly, it was a lot cheaper to get takeout than to get all the ingredients too cook. You would think tofu would be big here, but it really wasn’t. Or if it was used, it was used in combo with some type of animal.