Hiking & Cafe Recommendations

During the next couple of weeks, I explored new places nearby while venturing out to locations outside and near my range.

⛰️ Ansan Mountain

For the first activity with my taekwondo class, we went hiking up Ansan Mountain. By surprise, this hike is connected to Yonsei University. I was confused about whether we were going to walk to the mountain since our meeting location was outside of the school gym, but there was an entrance on campus that marked the beginning of the hike.

Since this was with our class, we had to stretch at every stop and use the exercise machines. At the top of the hike, we took pictures for memories and ended up posing with stretching methods. It’s been a while since I’ve done a hike, so my body was sore for about 2-3 days! One of the differences between hiking this mountain compared to Hawai’i is that the fall leaves on the ground made the hike slippery, but it was manageable.

🍵 Cafes

While Sinchon is a nice place for dinner, Yeonnam-dong is perfect for both morning brunch and dinner! I have been going to this neighborhood more often for cafes. Here are a few that I’ve enjoyed.

• Koriko Cafe

• Antique Coffee

• Meritree

• Cheongsudang

⛩️ Nijimori Studio

Since I don’t plan on traveling to Japan this year, I found a Japanese Village called Nijimori Studio through an Instagram post! My explore page on social media has been filled with new places and that is usually where I find new cafes and places to explore. The village is located outside of Seoul and took about 2 hours to arrive by subway and bus. This location was originally made as a filming location, but it got turned into a tourist attraction. The cost to visit the attraction was 20,000 KRW.

There were kimono rentals including school uniforms. This extended our time at the location since the village was mainly a place for food and photography.