Just down the street from Dongdaemun Gate is Dongdaemun Design Plaza. I’d seen this massive structure on the Seoul episode of “Somebody Feed Phil” and, let’s be honest, I went FULL tourist and absolutely needed to see it in person. And it 100% lived up to my expectations of it. The only disappointment? That the building is too large to really get a good picture of it (at least, with my cheap phone camera)!
What is DDP?
Okay, so Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) is a cool building… so what? My first question when I started researching it was: But what IS it? To put it simply: it’s an office building/mall. It’s considered the center of South Korea’s fashion hub and has retail stores inside, as well as parks on its roof. It’s become a symbol of Seoul and South Korea since its construction in 2014 and it is a MAJOR tourist attraction. And it’s also conveniently attached to the subways in Seoul – just get off at Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station and when you exit the station you’ll find yourself literally underneath the DDP. It’s an easy place to visit – especially if you’re going to walk a bit and head to Dongdaemun Gate (which I HIGHLY recommend doing).
It’s impossible to really get a good look at the entirety of the DDP. Your best bet is to get to higher ground and see it from there. We could see it from the top of the hill when we were hiking along the East Gate Wall, but it was a pretty smoggy day. On a clear day, you might be able to get a better view of it. Regardless of my ability to capture the size of this structure in pictures, it’s a pretty incredible visit.
The kids thought the statues (or “naked butt statues” as they called them) that were next to the DDP were hilarious – which probably says something about us as parents, but I’m not really sure what. Ha!
In the end, would I go to Seoul solely (see what I did there?) to see Dongdaemun Design Plaza? Probably not. But it’s worth seeing if you’re visiting Seoul anyway – especially if you’re headed to Dongdaemun Gate and the East Gate Wall.
’til next time…
Ash
How to visit Dongdaemun Design Plaza
Directions: We pasted 동대문디자인플라자 into Naver and then followed the instructions to take the subways from Samgakji Station to Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station. It’s been a bit since our trip, but I believe we had to make one subway transfer.
Cost: It’s free to walk around and explore the outside of the DDP.
