Visiting Daegu during Chuseok (Thanksgiving in South Korea)!
(ภาษาไทย)
Last year, we stayed in Busan during Chuseok, in South Korea. Most Korean’s will visit their hometown or stay home to spend time with family during this holiday.
In Busan, we could go to Gamcheon village and Jagalchi Market, which is open but some shops (more than 50%) were closed.
*During Chuseok, it’s hard to find a taxi!
This year, we went to visit Daegu, its about a 40 minute KTX ride from Busan. When we arrived we found E-World and Deongseongno Shopping Street open as normal, other places were closed!
We thought about a one day trip for this city but it was after we already booked the hotel for one night in Daegu.
Taking the train, either KTX or SRT from Busan to Daegu, you get off at Dongdaegu station. It costs 23,900 won for the First class and it costs 17,100won for an economy KTX ticket.
In a one day trip, we can do Alive Aquarium, Kim Gwang Seok Street, Spicy pork ribs(Donjin Jjimgalbi Street), E-World, Seomun Night Food Market, and Deongseongno Shopping Street.
Dongdaegu Station is very nice and clean. There is a Tourist information office outside where we stopped to get a city map and more info about Daegu.
Alive Aquarium is in Shinsegae Mall right next to Dongdaegu station.
I’ve been watching/reading the review about this aquarium, they have sharks and a mermaid show (the women swimming in a big water tank!). Unfortunately, this was closed for Chuseok, so if you do better than us to visit here when it’s open, let us know how it is….
Luckily, Taxis were easy to find, they are all lined up in front of the Station and also near all the shopping streets and attractions that we went to.
So our first stop was Kim Kwang Seok Street, this street is a narrow red bricked alley with almost 70 murals and artworks dedicated to the singer, Kim Kwang Seok, a popular folk singer during the late 80s and 90s who lived in this area until he was 5.
Kim Kwang Seok died when he was about 32years old and was very famous. There was a bit of intrigue surrounding his death…
The police found his dead body in his home with a cord around his neck. The police reported his death as a suicide, while his family thought he was murdered!
Even now, nobody can tell why he killed himself when he was very popular, his death is still a mystery!
When you walked along this road, you will hear Kim Kwang-Seok’s music through speakers.
Along the alley, there are a lot of cafes, restaurants, and shops, but they closed on Chuseok day!
From here we walked 1km to Jjim-Gal-bi for Korean braised short ribs or Korean Spicy Ribs at Donjin Jjimgalbi Street, the street full of restaurants specializing in the spicy ribs.. This is one of the MUST TRY foods in Daegu.
Our destination was Bongsan restaurant but it was CLOSED! Other few restaurants in the area were open, and we saw one guy who was waving us to his restaurant.
Oal Sang Jjim Galbi, (월상 찜갈비) was a great restaurant to try the Jjim Galbi too, there are only 2 big set menus which are all the same but different kind of meat.
Seems like the Korean Domestic ribs are more expensive, 28000won per set (it’s good enough for two person), but the imported ribs are cheaper at 18000won per set.
The Korean ribs they used at the restaurant are 100% Hanwoo.
Hanwoo is regarded as a premium Korean beef because of its high palatability and desired chewiness”. Since Koreans consider hanwoo beef a cultural icon and one of the top-quality beefs of the world, it is used in traditional foods, popular holiday dishes, or as a special-day gift.
They served the ribs in nickel-silver bowls that have higher thermal conductivity, which helps to bring out the best flavor and texture! The meat is quite spicy, so they also served with plain kimchi (no spice).
And we ate it Korean style, wrapping with salad or sesame leaf.
I’m a rib lover, so I enjoyed eating the Jjim Galbi. It’s spicy but it’s not that spicy, it’s good with rice too.
Today we paid 34,000won (Korean Domestic ribs and 2 rice bowls).
FYI: There are many MUST TRY foods in Daegu. If you like chicken gizzards, go to Pyeonghwa Market(평화 시장 :닭 똥집골묵) or if you like the BBQ entrails, go to Anjirang Street!
From the ribs restaurant street, we walked to our Hotel “Rivertain”, it’s about 800 meters away.
Now it’s 1pm and we can’t check in till 3 pm (some hotels in Daegu, check in 5pm!!!)
But we can leave our bag and then head out to E-World!
It takes about 15 minutes from the Rivertain Hotel to E-World.
Luckily for foreigners, we were told to get promotion tickets in the Tourist Information Room (right side of the gate), it’s 23000won per person for all ages.
This is a one-day admission, you can play everything inside the park. There is also an evening ticket available (after 5pm) which is a lot cheaper. E-World opens from 10am to 10pm daily.
When we got inside we took the cable car to the top. When we got to the top we went into the observatory and paid another 5000 won each to go up to the 76th floor for the city view. The top floor (83rd) is not open yet.
On the 76th floor, there is a Sky Jump which is a famous activity for this building, but it’s CLOSED today.
There are so many restaurants on the bottom floor (~1st -7th Floors).
There are also many rides inside the park, we had to try the Sky Drop, it’s fun to be up to 125m high and drop all at once to the ground (almost to the ground)!
I think if you have kids they would like this, but for 2 adults the rides were just ok.
We went back to check-in our hotel by way of Deongseongno Shopping Street (동성로).
Our hotel is only a 5 minute walk to/from the shopping street (Novotel Hotel is also close).
Dongseongno Street is a major fashion district in Daegu. The streets are packed with hundreds of stores full of personalities that reflect the city’s fast-paced fashion trends. Most of the shops are opened on Chuseok day.
I didn’t plan to shop here because we can pretty much find the same stuff in Busan where we live. There is a GRAND SALE event every year here, google the dates!
There are shopping mall/theater/ restaurants around this area. I think it’s more crowded here than other places we’ve been in Daegu today.
We stopped for dinner at a Korean Local food shop with Fried Dumpling, Ttokbokki (rice cake in spicy sauce) and the flat dumplings (납작만두 which is available only in Daegu).
We think we like the (normal) fried dumpling better than the flat dumplings.
There is also the TV show bakery shop that I want to try, it’s called the Samsong Bakery Shop (삼송빵집).
The most popular is the bread with creamy sweet corn inside (통옥수수빵).
But I liked the mochi balls with red bean paste inside (rice cake ball).
We found a shop with the same name in the Dongdaegu station!
There is also a small branch in Shinsegae Mall at Centum city in Busan as well…
On a normal day, I would like to go to the night market “Seomun” which is about 15 mins away from this Shopping Street. This is always in MUST GO list for visiting Daegu. But we went up there today on Chuseok, it’s CLOSED!
This is a huge market, I hope we will come back to Daegu again for this market 🙂
This is what we could visit in one day from Busan to Daegu (9am -8pm).
If we didn’t book the hotel, we could go back to Busan and get home around 10pm.
*We walked about 14.4km today!
Our Hotel for tonight in Daegu, Rivertain. This is a new hotel (grand open in July 2019), so it’s nice and clean. We paid 160,000won for a standard room (late booking).
It’s a pretty nice location (close to City Hall), but we don’t like the shower set up! Water will splash all over the bathroom.
Btw, there is a nice coffee shop next to the hotel where they make your coffee and put in a can! It was kind of cool!!
End of our Daegu trip on during Chuseok!
FYI: There are other popular cities nearby Daegu like Gyeongju and Pohang.
Our travel date: 13-14 September 2019
