Gangseo: Seoul's Botanic Park, the Old Airport, and Where to Eat Before a Flight

Most travelers pass through Gangseo-gu without noticing. It's where Gimpo Airport is — Seoul's second airport, which handles almost all domestic flights and the short international hops to Tokyo Haneda, Osaka, Taipei and Shanghai. If you're flying to Jeju or Busan, you're coming here.

Which makes it worth knowing that the district around the airport has one of the best free attractions in Seoul and a genuinely good place to eat.

What to see

• Seoul Botanic Park. A 50-hectare park in Magok combining wetland, woodland, and a vast glass conservatory of tropical and Mediterranean plants. The outdoor park is free; the greenhouse costs a small fee. It's twenty minutes from the airport and one of the best rainy-day options in the city.
• Gaehwasan. A low hill on the district's western edge with one of Seoul's great sunset views over the Han River estuary and, on a clear day, toward the North Korean border.
• Heo Jun Museum. A museum to the Joseon court physician who wrote the Dongui Bogam, the foundational text of Korean medicine, built where he lived.
• Gyeomjae Jeongseon Museum, dedicated to the great eighteenth-century landscape painter, near Gangseo's old riverside.

What to eat

Gangseo's food is shaped by two populations: airport and office workers in Magok and Balsan, and a large residential district that has been here far longer.

• Makguksu and cold noodles. Gangseo has one of the century-recognized buckwheat noodle houses in Seoul — a plain room that has been making the same bowl for generations.
• Gopchang. Grilled beef and pork intestine, the classic Korean drinking food, with a well-known cluster around Balsan.
• Mulhoe and raw fish. Cold spicy raw-fish soup — an east-coast dish — turns up here surprisingly well, along with a solid hoe scene.
• Pojangmacha. Indoor tented bars around the older neighborhoods, open late.
• Baekban and country set meals, aimed at the residential population rather than visitors.

The airport angle

If you have a few hours before a Gimpo flight, the practical version is: bag storage at the airport, one subway stop (Line 9 or Line 5) into Magok, an hour in the Botanic Park, lunch nearby, and back. The airport itself connects to central Seoul in about 30 minutes on Line 9's express service, and to Incheon Airport directly on the AREX line.

Practical tips

• Getting there: Gimpo International Airport Station (Lines 5, 9, AREX, Gimpo Goldline); Magongnaru Station (Line 9) for the Botanic Park.
• The Botanic Park greenhouse closes Mondays; the outdoor park stays open.
• Line 9 express skips most stations and is much faster into the center — check the platform indicator.
• Gaehwasan at sunset needs about 40 minutes of walking up from Gaehwasan Station.
• Domestic flights from Gimpo ask for 40 minutes before departure, not the usual two hours.

Each restaurant below has a video on its EatHub page, so you can judge a place before committing an hour of a layover to it.