Off at a stop called “Market”: Rina and Mali trust a name and climb the hill to Haebangchon

Mali, 23, works for a beauty magazine in Bangkok and brings her colour cards on every work trip to Seoul. This time the cold has arrived, so the first thing she pulled out of her case was a thick coat. On a weekday just into December, a morning meeting near Hannam-dong finishes earlier than expected and leaves the whole afternoon empty. The moment she is out of the building, Mali messages Rina, her 23-year-old friend from Japan. “It’s your turn to buy lunch today, isn’t it, Rina?”

That lunch has been owed since the day they rented Ttareungi bikes. Rina tried to buy Mali’s pass as well, got stopped by the one-card rule, and Mali laughed it off with “Lunch next time, then.” The two of them now choose places together, so this outing is settled by message too. Mali writes down Sinheung Market, known for its roof like a cloud. Rina, who loves any path with a name, adds the 108 Steps in the same neighbourhood.

Today they are heading for Haebangchon, a hillside neighbourhood below Namsan, the wooded mountain in central Seoul. The plan is to climb up, find the market, see the steps and the lift, and eat lunch. But first-timers get stuck at three points on this route. The village bus has two places to get off, the stops called “Haebangchon” and “Sijang” are not Sinheung Market, and the market’s shops all keep their own hours. We’ll look at each in the order the two ran into them.

The Cue — At a glance

The easiest way up to Haebangchon is village bus Yongsan 02 from Sookmyung Women’s Univ. Station. Get off at Haebangchon Five-Way Junction if the market comes first, and at Huam-dong Terminus if the 108 Steps come first. The stops called “Haebangchon” and “Sijang” are not Sinheung Market, so don’t get off on the strength of the name alone. See the steps by day, and time your meal to the hours of the shop you want.

How do you get up to Haebangchon? Three ways, depending on your station

The way up to Haebangchon splits first on which station you start from. Sookmyung Women’s Univ. Station is on Line 4, and Noksapyeong Station is on Line 6. So it is quicker to decide what you want to see first than to pick the station nearest your hotel. The walking distances and times in this piece are map-app walking routes. In the table below, start with the right-hand column and pick the row that suits your day.

Open in Kakao Map — Sookmyung Women’s Univ. Station

Whichever you choose, there is one thing to remember. Sinheung Market sits on the highest side of Haebangchon, so the lower down you get off, the more uphill you have to walk. On a day with bags or tired legs, riding Yongsan 02 to the top is far easier. It is only a matter of choosing, yet most first-timers don’t even know there is a choice to make.

Of course, Rina and Mali don’t have this table today. Rina is usually the one who rules columns in her notebook, but this time Mali steps forward first. “I’ll take charge of the route today, Rina. You just look after lunch.” Ever since their walk in Maeheon Citizen’s Forest, Mali has been copying Rina by writing numbers on the backs of her colour cards. She has grown quietly confident about finding her way since then, so Rina, looking amused, closes her notebook and stands beside her.

Standing on the pavement near Hannam-dong, Mali zooms out the map and scans the stop names first. Two welcome names appear side by side on the screen. One is 시장 (Sijang, “Market”), and right beside it is 해방촌 (Haebangchon). Mali holds out her phone to Rina and laughs. “Could it be any friendlier?” To someone who names every colour and someone who hunts for named paths, these two words seem to need no further thought.

Does the Sijang stop take you to Sinheung Market? No, it is about 777 m away in a straight line

To give the short answer first, Sinheung Market is not at the Sijang stop. The two of them hail a taxi and step out in high spirits in front of the stop. Once the car pulls away and they look around, there is only road and buildings, and nothing remotely like a cloud roof. Mali tilts her head, turns her phone round a few times and soon has her next move. “Then the stop next door must be the real one. It’s called Haebangchon, after all.”

They walk to the Haebangchon stop in the cold wind. When they get there and look up, there is no market there either. Only now does Rina open her notebook, pull up the map and pin the location of Sinheung Market. The market is on the hill above their heads, and they are standing at the bottom of that hill. Reading the distance figures on the map, Rina clamps a hand over her mouth and starts to laugh.

Measure the distance from each stop to Sinheung Market and you’ll see why Rina is laughing. The table below gives straight-line distances worked out from Seoul’s bus stop coordinates and map coordinates, and the walk itself is longer. All you need to notice is that having “Haebangchon” in the name doesn’t make a stop close.

Sijang and Haebangchon are both stops at the bottom of the hill, so they are no use for getting up to the neighbourhood. And what the two of them did that day is right there in the table. They got out at a stop 777 m from the market, then walked on purpose to a stop 846 m from it. They moved in search of the real thing, and the straight-line distance to the market actually grew by 69 m.

When Rina shows her the number, Mali grabs the stop’s post and laughs out loud. “Since I took charge of the route, we’ve got 69 m further away.” Rina is laughing too hard to hold her pen for a while. A person who names colours and a person who hunts for named paths have both been fooled by a name on the same day. Mali writes “Market 777 · Haebangchon 846” on the back of a colour card, and Rina rules a new column headed “Where to get off” in her notebook and draws a large question mark in it.

How long is the walk up from Noksapyeong Station? 1,310 m and 16 minutes from Exit 2

From Exit 2 of Noksapyeong Station to Sinheung Market is 1,310 m and 16 minutes on foot. The Haebangchon stop lies right on this route, so the two of them decide to walk up from here. The market is on the highest side of Haebangchon, which makes this an uphill walk. Don’t read 16 minutes as flat walking, and allow a little extra time to get your breath back. On a day of cold wind, it is best to do up your coat and set off at an unhurried pace.

This route begins at Noksapyeong. The meaning of the station’s name, which Rina finds near the front of her notebook and reads aloud, is a field thick with green grass. Mali looks around at the bare trees and grumbles, “This name’s wrong in December too.” It is just what anyone beaten twice by names today would say, and Rina presses the end of her pen to her lips to hold in a laugh. From then on, whenever a bus stop comes into view, they read the name first, shake their heads at each other and walk on.

On the climb, Rina decides to trust an address instead of a stop name. The address of Sinheung Market that she copied into her notebook is 95-9 Sinheung-ro. When she reads out the number, Mali, catching her breath, nods. “That number’s more reliable than a name.” Only once the address goes into the map does the line on the screen finally point up the hill. Rina leads the way with her notebook open, and Mali follows behind with both hands in her pockets.

Where is Sinheung Market? At 95-9 Sinheung-ro, under a roof like a cloud

Sinheung Market is on the highest side of Haebangchon, at 95-9 Sinheung-ro. The market entrance is on the Sinheung-ro 22-gil side, where a red-brick building stands with hanging signs bearing the market’s name on its wall. Look up towards the end of the slope from in front of the entrance and you can see the wooded hill of Namsan and N Seoul Tower beyond the power lines. Here, for the first time, Mali goes quiet for a good while. Power lines, brick and tower all fit into a single frame from this spot.

Instead of taking a photo straight away, Mali steps back a few paces. This is the “step back and shoot wide” she learned from Maya at Boramae Park. She sends one wide shot to Maya with a short note. “I shot it your way, Maya. Please don’t ask how we got here.” Beside her, Rina writes only “Market — 95-9 Sinheung-ro” under the question mark in her notebook, leaves the rest of the column empty and waits for Mali to come back.

Step inside the market and you reach the roof Mali chose. Where the worn slate roofing was taken off, a cloud-like arcade called “Cloud” has gone up. This roof won the grand prize at the 2024 Seoul Architecture Awards. It does more than look good, because it makes getting around the market noticeably easier on days of rain or snow. If you come to Haebangchon in winter, don’t give up your plans because of a nasty evening. Just come in under this roof.

As soon as she is under the roof, Mali lifts a colour card over her head. Today there is no magazine assignment, but her hand moves first anyway. Seeing the cold sunlight softened as it passes through the roof, she gives it a name: “milk under the cloud”. Rina hears the name and follows with her eyes the edge where the roof meets the wall. Mali reads the same roof as light and Rina reads it as finishing, an order of things that is familiar to them both by now.

Rina walks along the passage and begins counting lunch candidates. Fried chicken, raw fish, Thai food, noodles and American-style fusion Chinese are all around the market, inside and out, with unusual cafés mixed in. If you arrive expecting a traditional market, it will feel a little different. It is closer to a place for eating and lingering than for doing your shopping. The market also made “Seoul Edition 25”, a 2025 selection of local attractions from Seoul’s 25 districts, and Haebangchon was picked in the local cultural spaces category of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s second Local 100.

What time does Sinheung Market open? It differs by shop, and the crowds come in the evening

Hours at Sinheung Market differ from shop to shop. Customers tend to crowd in during the evening. So depending on when you arrive, you’ll find open shops and closed shops mixed together. Plan your time around the market’s name alone and this sight can easily throw you, and one person here doesn’t know that. It’s Rina, who has come to repay a lunch.

Rina walks down the passage with her purse at the ready. But the shop they chose by message turns out, of all things, to be closed. Standing in front of one that is open and looking around, she points carefully towards a Thai restaurant and asks, “How about a taste of home?” Mali shakes her head with a perfectly straight face. “Rina, I’m someone who rates that food in Bangkok every day.”

The two of them stand in the middle of the market and quickly redraw their plan. Rina puts a line through the word “lunch” in her notebook and writes “dinner” next to it. Mali says she can hold out, thanks to a late breakfast, and pats her stomach once. So the debt slips back by a few more hours. In exchange, the spare afternoon can go to Rina’s 108 Steps, which suits them both better.

If you already have a shop in mind, look up its hours before you come. That way you won’t end up like Rina, correcting a column in front of a closed door. If you haven’t picked one, it’s easier to allow plenty of time and combine the market with a walk around the neighbourhood. Then you can simply choose from whatever is open when you get there. The evening rush gets crowded, so if there are several of you, it is better to come up a little early.

Where does the name Haebangchon come from? The hillside of people who came back with liberation

The name Haebangchon comes from the 15 August liberation of 1945. After liberation, compatriots returning from abroad and people who had come south set up temporary homes on the hillside around here and many settled, and that gave the area its name. It is what people call today’s Yongsan-dong 1-ga and 2-ga. Having been fooled by a name once, Rina reads this one to the very end. As she copies the words “temporary homes” into her notebook, her pen slows for a moment.

Rina adds the market’s history to the same column. The market began as a stall market for daily necessities after liberation, and took its present form in the 1960s when shacks gave way to cement buildings. When the factories closed in the 1990s the footfall dried up, empty units multiplied, and more than 20 years of decline followed. In December 2015 it was named a Seoul urban regeneration area, and in 2016 landlords and tenants signed a coexistence agreement. Hearing this, Mali looks up once more at the roof whose colour she was measuring earlier.

Walk through the neighbourhood and that time is still there in many places. There is Haebang Church, built by refugees with their own hands in 1947, and a monument to Lee Bong-cheon, who became Haebangchon’s first neighbourhood head in 1955. This is a village with more than 80 years behind it, and the years in Rina’s notebook multiply faster than the names. Mali, listening, slips her colour cards into her pocket, because she feels the names she has heard today are not ones to turn into colours.

If you’d like to hear this story as you walk, there is a Seoul walking tour called “Haebangchon and Huam-dong: Stories of Life around Yongsan Garrison”. The course covers 4 km in two hours. It starts in front of the wooden bench rest area on basement level 1 of Noksapyeong Station and passes Sinheung Market, Haebang Church, the 108 Steps and more. Seoul walking tours take bookings from five months to five days before the tour date. If a weather warning makes a tour hard to run, all bookings are cancelled together, so in winter check the weather as you book.

How far apart are the 108 Steps and Sinheung Market? 340 m and a 5-minute walk from the steps to the market

From the 108 Steps to Sinheung Market is 340 m, a 5-minute walk. They are close enough to see together in one go. This time Rina leads the way from the market towards the steps, and Mali follows behind. Mali announces that she has stepped down from route duty and pointedly puts her phone in her pocket, and Rina finds this so funny she keeps looking back. Stand at the top of the steps and a glass-walled lift passage runs down the slope on your left, with a paved stepped path continuing on your right.

Below it all lies Huam-dong, and you can even see buses passing on the road in the distance. These steps, though, carry a heavy history. The 108 Steps were built in 1943, late in the Japanese occupation, as the approach to the Gyeongseong Hoguk Shrine, and the shrine was dismantled after liberation. Today they are the path joining Huam-dong and Haebangchon. Rina loves a path with a name, but in this path’s column she writes no impressions, only the year.

How much is the 108 Steps inclined lift? It’s free, and takes a minute to reach the top of the hill

The inclined lift at the 108 Steps is free for everyone. It was installed in 2018 for people with limited mobility who struggle with the steps, and it is the first inclined lift set in a residential area. Board at the bottom and in one minute you reach the top end of Sinheung-ro on the hill. When Rina reads out the words “free for everyone”, Mali, twice fooled by names today, asks, “Can I trust this one?” This time it means exactly what it says, so Rina laughs and pushes Mali towards the lift.

For travellers, this is the answer on a day with a suitcase or sore legs. Ride the lift up from the Huam-dong side and you can head for the market without walking up the hill. Today the two of them ride it the other way, from top to bottom, and inside the glass passage Mali holds a card up to the neighbourhood slowly rising past. Rina, more than the view, points a fingertip at the join where one glass panel meets the next and sighs in admiration. “Look here, they’ve lined up this edge so beautifully.”

Step out at the bottom and the glass lift building stands right in front of you. Concrete steps run along both sides of it, and rows of yellow tactile paving line the ground. Looking up, Mali says, “If we’d come up from here, we’d never have got 69 m further away.” Just as she says, the Huam-dong Terminus stop served by Yongsan 02 is right in front of them. This is the spot where Rina’s question mark can finally be rubbed out.

Where do you catch Yongsan 02? At the stop 숙대역5번출구 at Sookmyung Women’s Univ. Station

Yongsan 02 is a village bus running between Namyeong Station on Line 1, Sookmyung Women’s Univ. Station on Line 4 and the Haebangchon hill. If you are changing from the subway, Sookmyung Women’s Univ. Station is the easiest. The stop to board at is called 숙대역5번출구 (Sookmyung Station Exit 5), and it is easy to confuse with Exit 3, the one you use to walk to the 108 Steps. Don’t just memorise an exit number. Save this stop name on your map exactly as it is written. Rina, too, copies this name first onto the top line of the column she is correcting today.

Take Yongsan 02 from Sookmyung Women’s Univ. Station, get off at 후암동종점 (Huam-dong Terminus) and the 108 Steps are right before your eyes. From the stop to the 108 Steps is about 50 m in a straight line. The two of them are standing right in front of it now, and if they had picked this name earlier in the day, they could have ridden the lift up in comfort from the start. Hearing that, Mali looks down at the legs she wore out on the climb and gives a laugh with a sigh in it.

Rina opens her notebook in front of the stop. She isn’t someone who goes home leaving a wrong column as it is. As she pins the Yongsan 02 stop names on the map one by one to refill “Where to get off”, Mali reads the name on the sign and starts with suspicion. “It says terminus, so where’s the stop for the market?” Rina watches a small bus approaching, takes hold of Mali’s sleeve and says quietly, “This time, I’ll take charge.”

Where do you get off Yongsan 02? Huam-dong Terminus for the steps, Haebangchon Five-Way Junction for the market

Where to get off Yongsan 02 depends on what you want to see first. The stop on the market side is 해방촌오거리 (Haebangchon Five-Way Junction), and from there to Sinheung Market is about 50 m in a straight line. This is the top row of the distance table from earlier. Two lines are enough for the column Rina has ruled again, too.

If you plan to see both, the natural order is to get off at Huam-dong Terminus, ride the lift up and walk to the market. That way the lift does the stairs for you. On a day when you want to eat at the market first, getting off at Haebangchon Five-Way Junction is the shorter route. Note down just these two stop names and you’ll be far less likely to get lost on the hill.

Once Rina has filled the column and shut her notebook, the two of them ride the lift back up the hill. Walking towards the market, they come to the Haebangchon Five-Way Junction stop, where a small village bus is just pulling away. A little further on, the brick building at the market entrance they saw earlier comes into view. Mali thinks of the road they climbed so hard today and laughs in disbelief. When Rina shows her the two lines written where the question mark was, “108 Steps — Huam-dong Terminus” and “Market — Haebangchon Five-Way Junction”, Mali adds a small “50” next to the numbers on the back of her card.

Can you walk to Namsan? 1,381 m and 18 minutes from Sinheung Market to Baekbeom Square

The upper side of Haebangchon leads on to Namsan. From Sinheung Market to Baekbeom Square in Namsan Park is 1,381 m, 18 minutes on foot. The road up top is hard going, but the air and the view once you are up are good. The road above Haebangchon Five-Way Junction is Sowol-ro, and the start of Sowol-ro meets Baekbeom Square. You could also plan your day to walk Namsan in daylight and come back down to the market in the evening.

When Rina reads out this figure, Mali gazes up the hill for a long moment and shakes her head. Her legs have already used up today’s share of uphill. Rina doesn’t press the point and just smiles. They turn towards the market, where the evening lights are coming on one by one. Right now they are more curious about how the side that was shut at midday has changed than they are about the mountain.

When should you go to Haebangchon? The steps by day, your meal by the shop’s hours

Haebangchon is easiest if you see the steps by day and time your meal to the hours of the shop you want. Shop hours vary, so if you come just for the market, you may end up like Rina, drawing a line through your notebook. Planned as a half day, it looks like the table below. If you’d rather see the market first, change the top row to Haebangchon Five-Way Junction.

The good thing about this order is that you don’t have to walk up the steps, and you can reach the market in time for the shop you chose. It gets dark early in winter, so just move your daytime walk a little earlier. On days of snow or rain, the market is easier to get around thanks to the roof. If you settle on the evening, just bear in mind that this is when the crowds come.

The market in the evening is a different place from the one at midday. The lights are on at the shop they picked earlier too, and people are gathering under the roof. In front of it, Rina takes out her purse and turns to Mali. “Lunch money. I’m paying up now.” Mali looks at her watch and fires back, “I’ll take it as dinner money, with interest.” And so the column crossed out at midday closes in the evening.

Common Mistakes

• 01

  Getting off because of the stop name

  They got out at Sijang, walked to Haebangchon and ended up 69 m further from the market.

• 02

  Coming only for the market at lunchtime

  Rina’s lunch debt slipped to dinner in front of a closed shop.

• 03

  Thinking of the steps only on foot

  Mali reached the lift only after she had walked the whole climb.

FAQ

Recap — 30 seconds before you go