Sangsu-dong and Hapjeong-dong were never dominated by commerce even when both areas suddenly gained enormous popularity. Luckily, the neighborhoods have kept their uniquely tranquil atmosphere.
There is Dangin-ri power plant park (a comprehensive cultural park) with big trees lined up alongside a two-lane road in front of the park. Stores are found here and there around the park. You can take a pleasant night walk in the neighborhood and reach the riverside walks through streets that extend to the water. Yeouido is right across the Han River, full of skyscrapers shining beautifully at night. I think this is one of the best places to appreciate a beautiful night sky as people usually keep on walking rather than sit back on the benches.
There are numerous places I have come to love over the last ten and more years of living and having fun in Seoul. A lot of them are not around anymore. Some have completely lost their original charm as they have started attracting crowds. And some of them are too fancy to visit casually without a special occasion to celebrate.
On the flip hand, Mudaeruk is like a good old friend: A little bit introverted but reliable, always with something interesting to talk about—a friend I never get bored hanging out with.
There are not many places loved by locals steadily for a long time. Mudaeruk has grown up to a huge tree deeply rooted in Hapjeong. The tree has provided nice shades for many artists and fostered their growth under the shades. Such unconditional support for artists fills the place with surprisingly hip vibes. The uniqueness of Mudaeruk is created from the artists who routinely visit it every day.
I will introduce Mudaeruk to you. A place beloved by so many locals. Mudaeruk still makes tons of folks fall in love with it.
In 2005, Mudaeruk started as a bar in a ~700 sq. feet space in the Hongdae area. Soon after its start, Mudaeruk became a home for artists and musicians. Improv performances and exhibitions took place here.
Some years later, Mudaeruk moved to a street deep inside Hapjeong when Hapjeong and Sangsu were still mainly residential areas. They found a home in an old building that used to be an alcohol factory and renovated it while keeping its original industrial looks.
Mudaeruk defines itself as a comprehensive multicultural complex. Mudaeruk is very unique in that it deploys its spaces for non-commercial live performances, exhibitions and various markets while running a coffee shop as its only commercial business.
The ground floor and underground are used for the coffee shop and as a live music theater, respectively. But exhibitions and live music performances are hosted freely anywhere in the building based on genres and themes. This is possible because Mudaeruk occupies the whole building from the basement to the third floor.
The underground is a quite famous indie music theater in Hongdae. The founder of Mudaeruk was sorry that indie music theaters in the Hongdae area had shut their doors due to economic reasons and thoughtfully came up with a business model where the coffee shop generates stable cash flow for Mudaeruk to continue providing artists with large cultural spaces for free without commercial considerations. Artists don’t pay rent. All revenue from live performances go to the musicians.
Mudaeruk is a great example for how awesome a non-commercial place can be when it is led by someone with the right values and insight. Mudaeruk has a unique atmosphere that cannot be replicated by other cultural places, like art galleries or theaters, even if they accomplished huge commercial successes.
Year in and year out, my friends and I still throw these questions to each other on our way back home from Mudaeruk—can there be any other place like Mudaeruk? Have you ever seen anything else like this?
The coffee shop on the ground floor has a long and generous space with a window wall facing the street right in front of Mudaeruk. It’s a wide open space where large tables are sparsely spread on the floor. Power outlets are everywhere in the coffee shop. They have a variety of food and drink options.
The coffee shop is renowned for its vegan options but you can’t go wrong with anything on their menu. A lot of items designed for a lone diner are available too. Their dishes are something you can eat every day without getting fed up with eating the same thing. The dishes taste clean and natural without too much seasoning.
The floor is crowded with diners during meal times and with those who grab drinks from late at night to 1am when Mudaeruk is closed. This place is a great coffee shop, restaurant and bar, depending on when you visit and for what purpose.
You can stay here at the coffee shop all day long working on your stuff with just a cup of coffee. Nobody will nudge you to order more even if you refill your coffee all day long or come in and out of the coffee shop hundreds of times to smoke outside. The coffee shop seems quite busy at a first glance, but you can easily find a seat on an ordinary weekday.
As the sun goes down, the coffee shop switches its vibes for folks who want to enjoy dinner along with some drinks. Globe lamps dispersed here and there in the space turn on while the music gets a bit louder. Mudaeruk carefully selects the songs based on seasons and times. Their playlist is fantastic and widely covers different generations and genres. Their subtle volume control for the songs played in the background is artistic.
Mudaeruk coffee shop is famous for its vegan food but not as much as for its Thai Fried Chicken, their signature dish. It’s a slightly spicy fried chicken seasoned with a sweet and sour sauce. Cilantro is placed on top of the chicken. The fried chicken goes really well with Mudaeruk’s draft beers. They sell a wide range of draft beers at reasonable prices.
The open space in front of the building past the parking lot is a smoke room. It’s not easy to find such a spacious smoking room thoughtfully designed for smokers in Seoul. That’s why many smokers spend more time there than they usually do in other smoke rooms in Seoul. Walk past the smoke room and you will find a door that leads you to a terrace canopied by a beautiful sky.
The terrace, hallways and even restrooms are neat and clean. I have never found dust or dirty spots in Mudaeruk. I’m not obsessed with the cleanliness of public places, but the cozy and fresh feeling of exceptionally well managed old spaces lights me up. That’s probably one of the reasons I have been going to Mudaeruk on a regular basis for over a decade.
Nothing is excessive at Mudaeruk. There is just the right amount of furniture and lights are placed just at the right spots. They are arranged so naturally that I can’t think of anything that sticks out off the top of my head besides the nice flowers and grass in planters.
Mudaeruk is not cute, fancy or special. But it is always cool and comfortable. There’s nothing to get bored with. Their lamps and furniture are nothing special but feel delicately exotic and strange. Pieces have remarkable or clunky details that indicate they are all handmade. The lights and furniture play their supposed roles without showing off, creating the unique vibes of Mudaeruk.
Then there are the people who fill Mudaeruk’s achromatic colored spaces. Its interior design makes patrons look outstanding. Mudaeruk has been steadily loved by musicians and artists for a long time. And it continues to be loved by new waves of artists and musicians.
Mudaeruk doesn’t feel static but constantly evolves itself, reflecting new trends and zeitgeists brought in by the continuing influx of new artists and musicians. Mudaeruk doesn’t try to attract more customers by doing them favors but focuses on making its space as comfortable as possible for those who have loved the place for a long time.
Employees at Mudaeruk look chic and a bit cold without many facial expressions. But you will quickly find how kind they are. Most importantly, the employees are excellent at what they do. They never make a single mistake. Many of them are artists or art students themselves and actively involved in deciding how to run the spaces in Mudaeruk.
Daytime regulars during the weekdays are so diverse—students, artists, entrepreneurs, celebrities, architects, fashion models, translators and cartoonists. One noticeable fact is that surprisingly many rappers frequent Mudaeruk.
It’s not difficult to find customers that arrive at Mudaeruk at its opening hour sharp, and then go home at night and have been doing so on a regular basis for years. Mudaeruk clearly has different vibes than regular coffee shops as folks focus deeply on their work.
The coffee shop during the daytime looks chill and tranquil, but there’s a pleasant tension created by unmingled, different charms emanated by Mudaeruk customers. That tension facilitates the arts. Just staying there a little bit is enough to refresh my mood. I don’t get bored even without doing anything there for a while. Many celebrities frequent Mudaeruk.
Weekend Mudaeruk is completely different from weekday Mudaeruk, as well as when they host exhibitions, live performances or markets. The ground floor coffee shop mostly works as usual no matter what though. When a market is open, there is usually a long line around the building. The types of markets vary, from a small organic veggies market to one led by individual sellers selected through applications.
Mudaeruk explodes with tons of people when a market led by individual sellers opens. The individual sellers are usually entrepreneurs that run boutique brands or shops, artists or hipsters. Everyone at the market looks really cool and hip, including the sellers and their friends, those who stroll down the markets, the crowds on the terrace and the smoke room. I can’t find any better words than ‘cool’ and ‘hip’.
Even on regular days, a lot of people who look ordinary but extraordinary and those who digest extravagant clothes into their own styles visit Mudaeruk. But the peak is when the markets are open. What is sold at the markets varies from clothes and accessories that are handmade by the sellers’ brands, vinyl records, small items and sometimes even food. The items sold depend on the market.
In particular, you can find high quality clothes in the markets. With a little bit of luck, you can get beautiful vintage clothes from luxury brands at reasonable prices. That’s because young hipsters, not professional resellers, bring their items to the markets for fun, not for profits.
Mudaeruk makes me feel free. It’s been a decade since I started attending the place, but I still get inspired by it. A poster on its wall says, “We stand against any kind of discrimination”. Maybe the freedom and inspiration I feel at Mudaeruk come from its unbiased attitudes that attract folks with various backgrounds.
