Green Mile Coffee Bukchon • 그린마일커피 북촌점

Green Mile Coffee Bukchon (그린마일커피 북촌점) is a charming small coffee shop located near Bukchon Hanok Village (북촌한옥마을). The company, Green Mile Coffee (그린마일커피), which started in 2009 believe that good coffee starts with a selection of good ingredients and it is based on that belief that the company was built upon.

There are two floors in this cafe. The first floor is where you place your order and where the coffee bar/kitchen is. Seeing the shelf on the wall containing small wooden rectangles reminded me of an old hotel concierge cabinet. I wasn’t sure what they were at first but after I placed my order, the barista pulled the leather holder of one of the wooden rectangle and handed it over to me along with my receipt. Turns out, there are numbers engraved on each of the wooden panels which served as your order number. Pretty cool concept.

Since there’s only a single bench available on the first floor, I headed up to the second floor to find a seat. The interior of the cafe seems to be Japanese style influenced. Covered in wooden surface, the placement of the furnitures give a sense of calmness and spaciousness, despite of the fact that the space is not too big to begin with. There are also windows that allow enough natural lighting to come through which I think contribute to that spacious feeling. I’m not sure if it’s because it was a weekday or it’s just how it usually is, but the cafe was pretty quiet. The type of place where people speaks in low volume or in hushed whispers (there were three other couples there and that’s exactly what they did).

When I was there, the rooftop access was closed. But since my visit, I’ve seen photos on their Instagram where people went up to sit on the rooftop area. It makes a pretty photo spot too since you can get the view of the traditional rooftops from the surrounding area as your background. If you’re visiting Bukchon Hanok Village (북촌한옥마을) and looking for a cafe to stop by, this place is worth a visit.

Here’s a video of the place:

Note: These photos and video were taken before the pandemic.

 

Green Mile Coffee Bukchon • 그린마일커피 북촌점

Address: 서울 종로구 북촌로 64 1층
Telephone: 가회동 11-49 2층
Hours: Weekdays 08:00-19:00 | Weekends 10:00-19:00

Instagram: @green_mile_coffee

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Bukchon at Sunset

I'm pretty sure for those of you who have visited Seoul or wanted to visit seoul or simply watch Korean dramas are familiar with this particular location, the Bukchon Hanok Village (북촌한옥마을), which is probably one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city. I've been here a couple of times during daytime, but this was my first experience spending sunset in this neighborhood. It was a cold winter day, and since the sun was setting down, there weren't that many people in the area. I guess Seoulites prefer to stay indoors on a cold weather day like today, as they should. The experience was totally different than spending time here during the daytime surrounded by groups of tourists trying to take their group shots or take as much selfies as they could. It's so serene, peaceful almost. Such a great way to end the day to just admire the view, watch the sun disappeared into the horizon and the city light started to lit up here and there. For those of you who are in the Eastern part of the globe, I bid you good night, and for the rest of you, good morning and happy weekend! :)

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Gahoedong Catholic Church • 가회동성당

On a cold sunny saturday morning, I stepped into this cathedral that combines both Korean Hanok and Western-style architecture. The place was quite. Peaceful almost. Lights coming in through the glass sliding doors on the sides of the Hanok. People quietly looking around the area admiring the structure of this complex. This is a perfect place to just be still and rest from all the hustle bustle of the city. 

I've passed by Gahoe-dong Catholic Church (가회동성당) in Bukchon Hanok Village numerous times before, but never once I entered the place. It's one of those places where you have to step inside to find out the charms of the building. The combination of east and west architecture definitely is very interesting. We also went to the rooftop and greeted with the view of rows of Hanok rooftops with the mountain on the background on one side, as well as the modern city skyline on the other side. 

If you are interested in finding out more about the history of the Catholic church, they have a history exhibition hall in the first floor of the building. 

And for those of you who are celebrating Chinese (Solnal) New Year this week, hope you have a good new year holiday! Spend some times with the loved ones, eat lots of good food, and hopefully get some rest as well. 새해 복 많이 받으세요~ :)

*Special thanks to Robin for showing us this place :)

Here are my photo walk buddies that day. Check out their blog/instagram for more awesome pictures:
@seoul_stateofmind, @ian_mckay, @happyboil, @inner.pastiche

The Hanok (더한옥)

Stumbled upon this place when I was exploring Bukchon Hanok Village (북촌한옥마을) area with my friends on one afternoon. I was just peeking through the front door, trying to get a glimpse of what's inside and that was when a lady came out and opened the door inviting us in. First we were reluctant to go in because we weren't sure if we wanna spend time at the cafe, but the lady was nice enough to say it's okay for us to just look around the place and we don't have to buy drinks. So we went in and did just that. Entering the cafe is just like entering an old time hanok house because of all the vintage furnishing that's around the cafe. The cafe's atmosphere is pretty cozy and quite overall and we decided to sit down and order some drinks. Nobody was there when we came in but a couple of couples came in not long after we did. They have different rooms inside the Hanok and an outdoor area so you can sit wherever you like. And oh, as it turned out, the lady who invited us in was the owner of the place. She was very friendly and kindly chatted with us for a while. If you're curious about the story behind the place, you should asked her because she'll gladly explain it to you :)

Seoul Day 1: Bukchon & Ssamziegil

After walking around the Gyeongbokgung Palace for a while, we decided to find the nearest exit and make our way to our next destination. We're tired and hungry and it's already well past 1 pm, so we headed for lunch. We walked towards Bukchon-ro and found ourselves in this one road with a lot of restaurants on the left and right. We took a quick stroll down the road and decided that the first restaurant that we saw looks promising.

The name of the restaurant is 돈까스 (Tonkatsu), or at least that's what I read on the sign of the place when we walked in. I'm not too sure either. Anyway, we walked in, took our seat, started to look at the menus (which are in a form of photo album with the pictures of the food and a sticky label with the name of the food on top of it), and ordered a couple of dishes. The food was pretty delicious and there were definitely things that we never ordered before. Here are some shots of what we ate:

Kimchi Fried Rice with Cheese

Dosirak (도시락)

Spicy Seafood Noodles

After we got our energy back, we headed to Bukchon Hanok Village (북촌한옥마을) to see Korea's traditional houses—called Hanok—that date back to the Joseon Dynasty. Bukchon apparently literally means 'northern village'. When we arrived there, there are quite a number of people walking around, including people who came from out of town (at least that's our guess because they looked like tourists, but they speak Korean).

One interesting thing that we saw, after you walked up the hill, when you looked back, you can see multiple rows of hanoks with modern architecture of the city on the background. It was pretty interesting to see how the two co-exist in Seoul.

One tip for you if you want to visit Bukchon, look up their website and find the photo spots that you want to go to. There are 8 views of Bukchon that can be seen from different places, you just have to find the right spot if you want to see those views. We made a mistake on not finding out about these spots before we came. We also missed it on the map that we got from the information center (that we hold on into the whole time we were there and just found that out towards the end of our time there). As a result, we walked (and ran) up and down the hill in circles. I felt like I just had a work out session after we finished exploring Bukchon. But the whole area is very charming and we had a great time just looking at the architecture of the exterior of the hanoks.

After Bukchon, we walked our way towards Insa-dong. We passed the subway station and saw a couple of interesting things, one of them is there was an ajuhssi begging for money on the street. Nothing about it is odd, but what's surprising is the way they do it is very different than anything I've seen in other countries. If I remembered correctly, my Korean teacher told me that begging for money is something that is considered humiliating in Korean culture, thus the posture. I can't say this for sure though. Maybe someone who have a better insight to Korean culture can gives a better explanation about this.

Anyway, on with our journey, one of the place we want to visit in Insa-dong is Ssamziegil (쌈지길), a shopping center that has a pretty unique architectural structure. There are four floors with over 70 stores that sell different range of items. The feeling that I got from the area is that it's very young and artsy. The place was pretty packed with young people and families and the spiral staircases are not wide enough for the number of people that were there so we have to fight our way forward a little bit.

Here's the spiral staircases that connect the four floors together. All you have to do just walk forward and follow the staircase while you're doing your shopping, and eventually you'll find yourself on the top of the building. Pretty cool right?

View from the top

After a long afternoon of walking (and what I called semi-hiking at Bukchon), we decided to take a break at Ddoong Cafe (또옹 카페) that is located on the top floor of the building. For those who doesn't know, Ddoong means p**p in Korean. I guess you kinda can guess from the graphics that they have on their store windows :p

Since the weather was pretty hot, we were (again) craving for something sweet and cold. So we ordered a couple of desserts for snack.

Waffle with Strawberry, Kiwi, and Green Tea Ice Cream

Fruit Bingsu & Ice Green Tea Latte