Gangnam, Seoul, South Korea travel guide and things to do: Highlights of a cultural powerhouse city

Ten years after the release of global hit Gangnam Style, the catchy song's influence is still felt in the Seoul district it is named after. Credit: Alamy

When I first visited Gangnam, on my last trip to the Korean capital 15 years ago ago, I didn't realise I was actually staying in Gangnam, or for that matter, that such a place even existed.

Sure, as I wandered its streets I did notice that this was a part of Seoul with some style. But for me, and surely much of the rest of the world at that time, the term "K-pop" could well have been some kind of Korean vending machine soft-drink.

Now, I'm back in South Korea thanks to Qantas re-establishing direct flights to Seoul from Australia after roughly the same interval as my last visit.

As it eventuates, it's also almost exactly a decade since that incurable earworm of a song, Gangnam Style, became a shock global YouTube hit, Korea's more heavily stylised answer, if you like, to Shaddap Your Face.

The song that effectively put Gangnam on the map was the first YouTube video to hit one billion views and has become one of the 10 most-viewed music videos in YouTube history with 4.4 billion views.

Since then South Korea as a whole has emerged as a cultural powerhouse, not only in terms of music but also in film and television - the Oscar-recognised Parasite and the hit TV series Squid Game.

Korean food, too, in all its myriad forms, has also gained popularity internationally in the past decade, though not quite reaching the global mass appeal of Japanese cuisine. Still, today it forms a central part of any visit to South Korea.

The 10th anniversary of the global release of Gangnam Style is timely, too, because it's also been about three years since anyone has been able to visit (guess why) this Beverly Hills of Seoul and for that matter, South Korea as a whole.

Baby-faced and chubby, Psy, the singer and songwriter of Gangnam Style (real name Park Jae-sang), who was well-known as a performer in South Korea long before the song, may be responsible for the most successful one-hit wonder in musical, or at least music-video, history.

Ever since, this eponymous part of Seoul has been happily exploiting the notoriety from it.

That's despite the fact that Gangnam Style is a satire of an at-times snooty Gangnam, lampooning its status as the city's epicentre of cosmetic surgery, consumerism and designer coffee.

(Difficult as it is to comprehend, narcissistic South Korea, the unofficial cosmetic surgery capital of the world, today accounts for almost one quarter of all cosmetic surgeries with Gangnam the main centre.)

One of Gangnam's streets and subway stations even borrows part of its name from Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive.

Gangnam – which literally means "south of the river", namely the Han which runs through the middle of the South Korean capital – was not all that long ago little more than empty, collagen-free fields.

Today it occupies the enormity of Seoul's southside, with a dizzying number of neighbourhood names with "gu" and "dong" at the end within its expanse, which can make it unexpectedly unwieldy for the visitor to explore.

Even though Psy parodied it, Gangnam is an excellent place to base yourself in Seoul with much to see, enjoy and attempt to interpret, in what has emerged as a city nearly as kooky as its rival Tokyo.

Despite the palpable grief that still hangs heavily after the Halloween crowd-crush tragedy last year, my tour of Gangnam adds some lightness following a week or so exploring the rather more conservative part of Seoul on the other side of the river.

Giddy up. Let's get out there and into it.

STOP ONE

Behold the all singing and prancing Gangnam Style monument

Credit: Alamy

Behold the all singing and prancing Gangnam Style monument

Any (non?) self-respecting pilgrimage to Gangnam (gangnam.go.kr) really must begin outside the east gate of the COEX complex (www.coexcenter.com), site of Asia's largest underground shopping centre and the city's World Trade Centre (www.wtcseoul.com) where, along with the city's exclusive equestrian centre, a Gangnam Style video sequence was filmed.

It's here that you'll encounter a rather garish, oversized pair of crossed golden hands with the words "Gangnam Style" engraved down one side for all to see.

This is the former mayor of Gangnam's lavish, and some contend faintly misguided, tribute to Psy's mega hit, designed to represent the pony-style dance move featured in the song. (The singer reportedly objected, without irony, to the statue, considering it "excessive".)

Selfie-heaven, here you can pose for a photo in front of the statue with the song and video blaring out from an adjacent TV screen. (When I visit in the early part of the Korean winter the knuckles of the monument have a surreal dusting of snow across them from an overnight fall.)

Look, even if you're no fan of the song the monument (or is it a statue?) is a hoot and you won't feel too silly being snapped in front of it since the passing oblivious Seoulites do seem to have well and truly moved on from Gangnam Style. Maybe they're trying to tell me something.

STOP TWO

Descend into Asia's biggest underground shopping centre

Not unlike other affluent parts of Asia, shopping is an unofficial national sport in South Korea, with the entrance to the massive COEX Centre right next to the Gangnam Style statue.

Aside from the fact that being located entirely underground makes for a snug place to be in the bone-chilling Seoul winter, COEX, with almost 300 stores, aquarium and yes, kimchi museum, is also the location of one other extraordinary and utterly incongruous attraction…

STOP THREE

Book yourself into Seoul's most Instagrammable library

Credit: Getty Images

The Starfield COEX Library (starfield.co.kr), a must-see, runs directly off the shopping mall - you emerge into a sweeping, light-bathed atrium space.

It's distinguished by massively tall and seemingly unreachable book shelves, where the public is welcome to lose themselves in the huge collection of free-to-access, multi-lingual tomes and periodicals spread across a gamut of subjects.

Don't worry if you can't read or speak Korean since entire sections of the library include foreign books by famous authors as well as iPads that can be used to read e-books (or just stand back and take it all in, perhaps from one of the upper shelf levels).

However, an inability to speak Korean may make it a little harder to enjoy the many events that take place in the middle of what is a vast, naturally-lit space, including author talks, poetry readings, lectures and concerts.

But, really, every shopping centre should have one, even if South Korea is one of the most wired countries on the planet.

STOP FOUR

Get along to Gangnam's chic gingko tree-studded street

Credit: Alamy

In the lyrics of Gangnam Style, Psy loves to mock, among its other characteristics, the fancy coffee obsession south of the river.

The singer croons about "a classy girl who knows how to enjoy the freedom of a cup of coffee ... A guy who one-shots his coffee before it even cools down."

During my previous visit to Seoul, the street for cool cafes was tree-lined Garosu-gil (english.visitkorea.or.kr), one of the hippest streets south of the river.

Today, it's still fashionable and a fun place for people-watching but I'm disappointed to discover that almost all of the cafes have gone, displaced by upscale stores and multi-level shopfront plastic-surgery clinics where you can nip in for a nip and tuck.

Staying for three nights at Voco Gangnam (ihg.com), a new boutique-style hotel with a convenient location across a busy road, I have plenty of time to explore the area. But a warning - don't bother going early, as just like Tokyo, nothing much opens until 10am or later, cafes included.

Speaking of Tokyo, Garosu-gil and its surrounds are a little reminiscent of Omotesando, the Japanese capital's prestige shopping haunt, and its more funky Harajuku neighbourhood.

As I head off the main drag, I come across huddles of cafes, along with restaurants, bars, boutiques and hairdressing salons, that have transferred to the lively backstreets of the surrounding Sinsa-dong ward of Gangnam-gu.

STOP FIVE

K-pop along to the star-studded K-Star Road

Credit: Alamy

During this Seoul sojourn, there is a debate among South Koreans as to whether the nation's kings of K-pop should be exempted from compulsory national military service (following my visit North Korea provocatively sneaks a swarm of drones across the DMZ - the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas).

The issue of whether adored entertainers, such as members of the boy band BTS, should be drafted has divided South Korea with a poll last year finding 61 per cent of people supported exemptions. In another poll, about 54 per cent said group members should serve in the military.

In the end, the South Korean government went ahead and conscripted Jin, a member of BTS, with the pop idol, complete with regulation boy-band bouffant, beginning his stint in the military last month.

Should, heaven forbid, anything happen to the mobilised pin-up there's a road in Gangnam that could well end up becoming a national, or even international shrine.

The area around Apgujeong Rodeo Station (yes, that is its official name) and the Cheongdam crossroads is known as Seoul's luxury label strip, with its surrounding streets full of cool cafes and upmarket boutiques.

But the name of the strip - intersected like most of Seoul by a Hyundai, Kia and Ssangyong-clogged main road - has been changed to K-Star Road in an attempt by local burghers to draw more international tourists (english.visitkorea.or.kr).

This made-for-Insta road is predicated on the concept of "GangnamDol", coined from the words "Gangnam", "idol" and "doll", and is also home to top Korean entertainment companies such as JYP Entertainment and Cube Entertainment.

As a result, about a kilometre of it is dotted with 18 or so human-sized, bear-like dolls, each painted a different colour in order to represent specific, though to me obscure, K-pop groups such as EXO, AOA, GOT7 and B1A4, each sounding suspiciously like the scientific term for the latest horror global contagion.

Suitably, the biggest of the bears is the three-metre "PSY GangnamDol", positioned conspicuously in front of the Galleria Department Store.

In reality, Psy was too cheesily subversive to fully qualify as K-pop, but he achieved a worldwide fame that had eluded Korean pop acts up until 2012.

He is now 45 and is a double-breasted suit and tie-sporting South Korean music industry executive though he still performs occasionally to an adoring domestic public.

And it is with, alas, a Psy – I mean, sigh – that K-Star Road marks the end of my three-day Gangnam gadabout.

Anthony Dennis travelled to Seoul as a guest of Qantas Airways, the Korean Tourism Organisation and InterContinental Hotels.

FIVE MORE STOPS ON THE GANGNAM STYLE TOUR

PARK IT

Among the most prominent features south of the river is the main venue for Seoul's hosting of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. Today the capital's 1.45 million square metre Olympic Park is a place where citizens of Seoul can relax, exercise and play tourist. See english.visitkorea.or.kr

GO WITH THE FLOW

With the Han River such a dominant feature of Seoul it's surprising that it seems to be under-used. But there is Some Sevit, at the south end of Banpo Bridge, which consists of three artificial floating islands, filled with eateries, that glow at night. See somesevit.com

PAY HOMAGE

Gangnam's not all ostentation and you'll find its reverential side in an unlikely spot right opposite COEX (see above). Overlooking the modern city, the ancient Bongeunsa Temple complex is worth a wander with its centrepiece, a giant Buddha statue rising 23 metres. See english.visitkorea.or.kr

HIT THE HEIGHTS

You can't quite glimpse North Korea from it (try the essential DMZ day trip for that) but the 555-metre, 123-storey Lotte World Tower certainly gives you a sense of Seoul's enormous size and its dramatic setting between a quartet of surrounding mountains. See lwt.co.kr

HOOF IT

If a whole statue wasn't enough, right outside exit five of the subway's Gangnam Station is another Gangnam Style tribute space where tourists and locals, if they dare, can take to the horse dance stage and record themselves dancing to the song while music plays on a loop in the background. See english.visitseoul.ne

THE DETAILS

FLY

Qantas flies to Seoul from Sydney four days a week during the Australian summer (winter in South Korea) and three times a week between the warmer months in South Korea between May and October. See qantas.com

STAY

The well-situated, contemporary-style Voco Gangnam four-star hotel, right opposite the road from trendy Garosugil Street, opened for business last year. It has double rooms from $202 a night. See ihg.com

RIDE

Seoul's subway system is complex but fairly user-friendly and affordable once you decipher it. Taxis are cheap, safe and plentiful though few drivers speak much, if any, English so keep your Korean language hotel card with you. One of the best ways to see Gangnam's sights is the Gangnam City Tour Bus. Note that the service had been suspended due to COVID-19 so check to see if it's operational. See seoulmetro.co.kr; gangnam.go.kr

MORE

traveller.com.au/south-korea

english.visitkorea.or.kr