Cafes in Bundang
- Jeongja cafe street 정자 카페 거리, Jukjeon cafe street 죽전 카페 길-
Bundang-gu (gu = district) is in Seongnam, a satellite city of Seoul. (i.e a smaller city slightly outside of seoul itself)
in the province that surrounds seoul (Gyeonggi-do)
So basically,
Gyeonggi-do (province) --> Seongnam-shi (city) --> Bundang-gu (district)
How to get to Jeongja/Jukjeon
You can take the subway to Jeongja station (Shinbundang and Bundang line) and then to Jukjeon station on the Bundang (yellow) line.
Luckily, while surveying the subway map at the station for the fastest route, realised there was the Shinbundang line (which wasn't in my condensed version of the subway map) which brought me straight from Yangjae on line 3 to Jeongja. You can also take it from Gangnam if you are on Line 2.
That shortened the travelling time by about half an hour There were even advertisements along the Shinbundang stations that travelling to/from Gangnam only takes 15 minutes now (:
Even then from Ewha Univ. station to Jeongja station, it took about 1h 15 min.
So, would only recommend it if:
1)You are in Korea for more than 2 weeks and have some free time
2) You are staying in the Gangnam area.
If not, i think the cafe areas of Samcheongdong, Garosugil and Hongdae in Seoul would be more than sufficient for you to explore
Jeongja cafe street 정자 카페 거리
Directions:
At Jeongja subway station, there is even a signage for the cafe street. (Exit 5).
But was still lost after I exited. Had to wander around a while and ask a few passersby.
1) Basically when you come out of Exit 5 you'll see a very big road with a river?/canal? next to it.
2) Walk away from that big road/canal until you reach another main road that is parellel to that. (see picture below, walk to the road highlighted in yellow) And the cafe street should be around that area. Some of the cafes are nestled in some of the housing apartments.
Jukjeon cafe street 죽전 카페 길
*Do note, only one main street of the cafe cluster in Jukjeon has the nice pavement as seen in the centre and bottom right picture. The rest of the cafes are fronted by roads for cars to park and pass by.
Directions (roughly):
Jukjeon cafe street is harder to find as there are no signboards leading you from the subway station .
Got lost a couple of times but all I needed to do was have a screenshot of the picture from Seoulistic and said "죽전 카페 길" ( pronounced roughly as juk john ga-pay gill)
A
passerby I asked told me to hail a taxi, as she said it would be a long
walk but decided to walk since I had time and wanted to explore the
suburb anyway and it took only about 15-20 minutes to reach.
1) From the Jukjeon station walk towards Shinsagae department store (it is right next to the subway station)
2) Walk through (or around) Shinsagae to E-mart
3)Don't enter E-mart,
but walk past the main entrance to the back of it where they deliver all
the goods. From there you should be able to see a red bridge.
4) Walk
across the big red bridge and at the big junction go in the 2'o clock direction (you should be able to see a cluster of low rise buildings
which is the cafe street)
5) After 3-5 minutes of walking you should be able to see this coffee cup signage! and that means you've reached the cafe street.
Rough map of how to get to Jukjeon cafe street.
Jeongja vs Jukjeon?
If you only have time
for one, would recommend Jukjeon cafe street because of
- The higher number (I think) of cafes
- A better mix of cafes
- More affordable options
- Each cafe having a more indie or quaint
feeling.
- Cluster style which makes it feel more secluded and exclusively for cafe-goers (with some areas specifically paved for pedestrians only), as compared to Jeongja where the cafes are more of just a row of shops along a main street.
That's all for the intro of these 2 cafes streets. Will be back to blog about specific cafes soon! (:
