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Seoul designates 120 ‘Hallyu spots’

February 13, 2014

Love lock at N Seoul Tower

By Nam Hyun-woo

For hallyu fans from around the world, Seoul is offering one more thing for visitors to check out.

The city government has designated 120 spots throughout the capital where dramas and other hallyu events were filmed.

N Seoul Tower and Tongin Market in central Seoul are among them.

The list also includes places that are lesser known as part of an effort to enable visitors to feel hallyu up close and personal.

Promotional activities will be staged with the release of tour guide books in multiple languages ― English, Japanese and Chinese ― and there will be a hallyu page on the government’s official tour website.

N Seoul Tower has become well-known to the fans of MBC’s “We Got Married,” a make-believe marriage show in which TV personalities pair up and show what life would be like if they were married.

In an episode featuring singer Alex and actress Shin Ae, the two installed a lock on a wire fence in a demonstration of their hypothetical love. After the show, the site become a “hot spot” for hallyu fans to see the lock and couples who wanted to do the same thing.

“Box Lunch Cafe” at Tongin Market

For variety show fans such as SBS’s “Running Man” or KBS’s “1 Night 2 Days,” Tongin Market in Jongno District became a popular destination because of its “Box Lunch Cafe.”
In the market, visitors exchange their money into traditional brass coins with which they can buy food or whatever is for sale on the market’s stalls.

After shopping, visitors will be able to go back to Lunch Box Cafe and get a bowl of rice and soup for 1,000 won or two coins.

For K-pop fans, the city said it designated a number of entertainment agency offices as tourist spots to allow fans to have opportunities to see their favorite singers and celebrities up close.

The city said tourists can get stamps after visiting some of these spots and fill a “stamp booklet,” which the city expects to be a popular souvenir.

It has chosen these spots with the advice of foreign tourists who have visited Seoul.

Azusa Eto, a Japanese national who took part in the designation, said, “This will be a good opportunity for hallyu fans to have the feeling of getting closer to their favorite TV celebrities.”

Further information is available at visitseoul.net and the city’s hallyu-specialized tour website, hallyu.visitseoul.net, which will open Tuesday.