What should I avoid in Seoul?

The taxi queue at Incheon looks orderly, but unlicensed drivers hovering near the exit quote ₩100,000 to central Seoul — the metered fare runs closer to ₩65,000, and the airport limousine bus does it for ₩16,000 using the dedicated expressway lane. Insist on the meter. The phrase is "미터기 켜주세요" (mi-teo-gi kyeo-ju-se-yo). Any driver who claims it's broken is lying; walk to the next cab. Seoul's subway runs clean and fast with English signage on every platform, but last trains leave around 11:30pm on most lines. Miss that window and you're paying ₩15,000–₩25,000 for a late-night taxi, or trying to decode the night bus system — which only works if you can read Korean route maps. Worth noting: T-money cards work on buses, subway, and even convenience store purchases. Load one at any station kiosk for ₩4,000 and stop fumbling for cash.

Myeongdong feels like walking through a cosmetics trade show where every booth has a commission target. Staff will physically step into your path holding sheet masks, grab your arm, offer "free samples" that lead to a hard-sell pitch in a back room. The skincare is fine — it's cheaper at any Olive Young in a residential neighborhood without the performance. Gangnam, for all its pop-culture fame, is mostly plastic surgery clinics, test-prep academies, and office buildings. There's nothing to photograph. If you're going because of the song, you'll stand on a sidewalk near Gangnam Station, look around at concrete and traffic, and leave. The neighborhoods that actually reward wandering — Ikseon-dong's narrow tile-roofed alleys where you can smell roasting sweet potatoes from the corner stall, Euljiro's old printing shops turned into dimly lit bars with exposed pipes and cheap hite beer, Seongsu-dong's converted shoe warehouses — don't appear on most first-timer lists. That's where Seoulites spend their weekends.

Bukchon Hanok Village is a residential neighborhood where people live, not a theme park. The residents have posted signs — in Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese — asking visitors to keep their voices down, stop peering into windows, and stay off private property. Some alleys now have ropes and volunteer guards during peak hours. Go before 9am on a weekday when it's quiet enough to hear the wooden gates settling in the cold morning air. The palaces themselves are worth your time, but skip the ₩30,000 hanbok rental shops clustered outside Gyeongbokgung unless you actually want to wear one — the "free palace entry in hanbok" deal saves you ₩3,000 on admission while costing ten times that on the rental plus an hour of changing and posing. The palace takes 40 minutes to walk properly. Most hanbok renters spend 35 of those minutes at the first gate taking selfies. You'll learn more in the back gardens, where the gravel crunches underfoot and the tour groups thin out.

The restaurants lining the main road outside Gyeongbokgung and Insadong's pedestrian street charge tourist prices for food you can get better two blocks in any direction. A ₩15,000 bibimbap at those spots is ₩8,000 at Gwangjang Market's second floor, where the aunties have been making it the same way for decades — the stone pot radiating heat into your palms, sesame oil pooling dark at the edges, the crack of a raw egg hitting hot rice. That said, Gwangjang Market itself gets uncomfortably packed on weekend afternoons; go on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening when the stalls still sizzle with bindaetteok batter but you can actually find a seat. In Itaewon and Hongdae, avoid any bar where a promoter physically hands you a flyer on the street — the drink prices inside are inflated, and some of the shadier spots around Itaewon's Hooker Hill area have been known to pad tabs with drinks you didn't order. Check every line on the bill before you tap your card.

Seoul's yellow dust season runs roughly March through May — fine particulate from the Gobi Desert blows across the peninsula and turns the sky a flat, milky beige. On bad days the PM2.5 readings spike past 150 and the city issues health advisories. Check the AirKorea app daily and carry a KF94 mask — Korea's equivalent of N95, sold at every convenience store for about ₩1,500. The monsoon, called jangma, hits late June through mid-July with warm, heavy rain that can dump 100mm in a single afternoon. Flooding occasionally closes subway stations along the Han River. Winter is the opposite problem: dry, bright, and cold in a way that surprises people. January averages hover around -5°C, and the wind funneling between the high-rises near Gwanghwamun cuts through a single jacket layer like it isn't there. Pack thermals. The ondol-heated floors in your hotel room will feel earned after a day walking Namsan in February, when your breath hangs visible and the city spreads out gray and sharp below.