Hapjeong,
Where One Can Hide
from Giant K-pop Billboards
(if needed)
(or spend some money on overpriced coffee and an unmatchable
atmosphere)
To the west of Gangnam, parallel to the Han River lies Mapo-gu: the center of my civilization for a month that I have spent at my friend’s apartment in Sinchon.
Mapo-gu can be different too.
Sometimes, soft and sweet like the cream paste inside a bungeoppang, the Korean fish-shaped pastry. Sometimes, warm like the hue of the sky a second before sunset.
It can be quiet, like the ambient Inception city in Taepyeong-dong, filled with the older generation, but it can also be loud and bustling like Hongdae: indecent at night and filled with Hongdae boys, in search of foreign open-mindedness. (Hongdae boys are even a TikTok trend now. Also, I have been lucky to experience an actual word fight between a Hongdae and Gangnam boys, each one standing up for their decency and grace.)
Vera calls Mangwon—a neighborhood west of Hongdae and just above the river—“their [Korean] deep Brooklyn.” She says that is because that area hasn't been gentrified yet, similar to Brooklyn, and has lots of small boutiques within.
“My friend told me all the ajummas [grandmothers, in Korean] live there —so it’s pretty quiet.”
Mangwon feels nostalgic to some. To others, it feels recharging. There are lots of streets to wander around, as well as the local Mangwon Market, which I visited along with Juliette—a former Parsons student, for whom this market unleashed the warmth of childhood memories.
For Kat, who's still in the process of discovering Seoul for herself, Mangwon is a place of small businesses and creativity. She affectionately describes it as “a neighborhood full of little shops and cafés…and lots of grannies selling homemade food.”
That’s what Mangwon feels like to me — soft colors, painted walls, indie coffee shops tucked away into little corners, lost in the little glimpses of small moments, personal, like a card you get your mom for her birthday, nostalgic—like the jokbal you shared with your father back in the day.
However, for me, the area in Mapo-gu I fell in love with the most, overwhelmed by the warmth and longing it sparked in my heart, was Hapjeong-dong. Right underneath the student-bustling Sinchon, a warm-hearted twin to evil Hongdae, it felt like a different universe altogether.
My friend, Nastya, notices how clean Hapjeong is. The “clean girl” of Seoul. It is a neighborhood rich in nightlife, but “quiet nightlife,” still able to contain within itself a sense of contemplation.
Whenever I visit a new country, somehow, I always end up choosing a place that resonates with me the most. I’ve started to call it an area of my “potential residency.” I can’t remember when I started doing this, but as of today, I have a place like this in London, Paris, and Berlin.
In Seoul, Hapjeong became that place for me. It felt sweet, warm, and cozy, enveloping you with the sweet scents from local bakeries. Its walls were covered with drawings of manhwa characters I could recognize (which, for me, became the equivalent of seeing a K-pop idol).
The rushing motorcyclists, the funky-shaped buildings towering above you in some places, the eclectic mix of plants, ginkgo trees, pines, and grapevines tangling within — it’s what a home would feel like.
And although I didn’t do much shopping in Hapjeong, it would be the place I’d turn to if I wanted some quiet time to myself, wandering around looking for clothes that felt just right.
Emily, for example, a college student from Seoul, who prefers to dress consciously, valuing functionality over design, tells me she does most of her thrifting in Hapjeong’s vintage and second-hand stores, as well as smaller select shops. This was a surprise to me, because in all my wandering through Hapjeong, I had seen no stores at all — it felt so quiet compared to the lush, color-screaming neighborhoods nearby.
Hapjeong also houses a famously popular photo spot among tourists, called Hapjeong-dong Café Street, but I didn’t know that at the time, so I might have visited it without realizing.
We made a stop at Café Letter, a café where they serve square croissants with fillings. A simple door and a lonely ficus outside invited us in. The gentle combination of figs and cream is what I’ve started to associate with the place.
Emily’s favorite Anthracite café branch is also located in Hapjeong. It’s the one I’ve never been to, but Emily’s fascination with it lies in a piece of old machinery — an old part of a conveyor from some abandoned factory that has been reimagined into a counter.
This relic of the past, garbage, has been exhibited as a centerpiece inside the shop and breathed life into. It’s another bright manifestation of K-style: incorporating old into new, mixing eras, styles, and aesthetics, and creating a product, perfectly matched to the vibe of today’s generation.