Mali saw “8 per session” before anything else at Seoul K-Content Week, and picked two of the six experiences for international visitors

On the night of Thursday 5 November, Mali came back to her room after walking along Cheonggyecheon with Rina and opened her phone before she had even taken her shoes off. Mali is twenty-three and works at a beauty magazine in Bangkok, and this was her fourth work trip to Seoul. On the screen was news of an event the city was putting on for international travellers. It was called “2026 Seoul K-Content Week” and it ran from 14 to 20 November. Mali’s sixth work trip fell in exactly that week.

The announcement listed experiences such as K-pop dance, traditional crafts, K-beauty makeup and K-food cooking. Mali’s eyes stopped on the makeup first. For someone who chooses and names cosmetic colours for a magazine every month, “K-beauty” was a word that meant work and play at the same time. She took out the little bundle of colour cards she brings to Seoul every time, laid it on the desk and put her phone down beside it. She had a habit of holding a card up to anything she liked and naming it on the back, and this time she meant to use it to plan her days.

That night Mali first drew a circle round Saturday 14 November. The week started that day, so she assumed the experiences would start then too. Once she had read the announcement to the end, she rubbed the circle out and drew five new boxes, from Monday the 16th of the following week to Friday the 20th. This piece follows what she looked at and chose that night, and how she found her way on the day she had picked.

The Cue — At a glance

Seoul K-Content Week’s six booked experiences run not from the first day of the week, the 14th, but from Monday the 16th to Friday the 20th, and Wednesday is the only day with two. They are for international visitors only and booked in advance on a first-come, first-served basis, so it is quicker to mark the days you are in Seoul first and then pick a session on those days. Check the date and session once more before you pay, and on the day bring your passport or an ID that shows your foreign nationality.

When is Seoul K-Content Week? 14 to 20 November, with experiences from Monday the 16th

Seoul K-Content Week runs for seven days, from Saturday 14 November to Friday 20 November 2026. In Korean it appears both as “2026 서울여행주간” and as “2026 K-콘텐츠 서울여행주간”, but it is the same event. The first two days, the 14th and 15th, have no experience programmes, only promotional booths at Gocheok Sky Dome alongside the Melon Music Awards (MMA). The experiences you book in advance start on Monday the 16th. That line was the reason Mali rubbed out her Saturday circle.

Open in Kakao Map — Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station

The booths are up from 12 noon to 6 p.m. on the 14th and 15th, above the Cloud Bridge at Gocheok Sky Dome. They include a K-Content Travel Quiz, an AI photo booth and AR games. By underground, Gocheok Sky Dome is 299 m from Exit 2 of Guil Station. Mali would still be in Bangkok that weekend, so she left the booth box empty and filled the five boxes from Monday with programme names, one by one.

What you can join this week depends on the dates you are in Seoul. If you are only here on the weekend of the 14th and 15th, there are just the booths at Gocheok Sky Dome. If you arrive on Monday or later, the booths are over but a different experience is on every day until Friday. If, like Mali, you are on a work trip with commitments during the week, start by counting the free afternoons and mornings in your schedule. The table below gathers, in date order, the programmes you can fit into those gaps.

Read the date column first. There is one programme a day from Monday to Friday and two on Wednesday, so the days you are in Seoul determine which programmes you can choose from. The time column comes next. The makeup class runs twice on the same day and the Night City Photo Shot five times, every 30 minutes, so you can pick a time within the day. Mali saw straight away from this table that she had to choose the date first.

What can international visitors do? The six experiences and the language they run in

All six programmes are run in Korean with English interpretation. Mali, who works in English on many days, relaxed when she read that line. Then she read down the steps each programme’s official description sets out. Knowing whether you will be using your body, your hands or your feet tells you what to wear on the day.

Friday’s Random Play Dance is a single programme that opens with a Taekwondo performance at 2 p.m., then from 3 p.m. you learn K-pop choreography and everyone dances together. Comfortable clothes and shoes for dancing are recommended, and the songs and choreography may change depending on conditions on the day. Monday’s K-Craft Workshop runs from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Bukchon Traditional Craft Experience Center, 24-5 Bukchon-ro 12-gil, Jongno-gu. You discover Korean crafts, learn traditional techniques and take home the craft item you make, so it suits anyone who would like to make a souvenir with their own hands. Mali’s eye lingered on the words “take it home” and she paired it with a light green card, but Monday afternoon was when her plane was due to land in Seoul.

Tuesday’s makeup class explores K-beauty trends, teaches makeup tips, then has you create your own look and finish with a selfie. Thursday’s cooking class explores Korean flavours and teaches simple cooking tips, then you enjoy the food you have made. You are asked to tell the staff in advance about any food allergies or dietary restrictions, and the menu and ingredients change depending on conditions on the day. What caught Mali’s attention was that the two programmes end differently. The makeup class leaves you with a selfie, and the cooking class ends with tasting food you made yourself.

Wednesday’s two programmes are at DDP. The 2 p.m. docent tour is a walking tour with an actor around K-pop and K-drama filming locations near DDP, so comfortable shoes are recommended, and the route and schedule may change with the weather or conditions on site. The evening Night City Photo Shot has you explore DDP at night, find good photo spots and take home photos taken by a professional photographer. The shoot is outdoors, so there is a note asking you to dress for the weather. Mali laid her six colour cards out in a row on the desk and paired one card with each programme.

At the Night City Photo Shot line, Mali’s hand stopped for a long while. At work she is the one at the side of the set choosing the colour behind the model, so a session where someone photographs her felt unfamiliar and intriguing at once. Walking round DDP at night looking for good photo spots was close to her own job, too. She paired that programme with the silver-grey card. She thought the colour would suit a metal wall catching the night lights.

Once she had read all six, they fell into groups by what you do. The dance uses your body, the craft, makeup and cooking classes use your hands, and the docent tour and Night City Photo Shot are walking programmes. The booked experiences take place across four locations. The craft is in Bukchon, the makeup in Yongsan and the cooking in Gangnam, and the other three are all at DDP. If you cannot decide what to do, narrow it down by two things first: the kind of thing you want to do, and the neighbourhoods you can get to.

Seoul K-Content Week prices and places: two free, three at 5,000 won, and 6 to 8 per session for some

Not every Seoul K-Content Week experience is free. Of the six, the free ones are Random Play Dance and the K-Craft Workshop, while the makeup class, the Night City Photo Shot and the cooking class cost 5,000 won. If all you have heard is “free experiences for international visitors”, this is where it gets confusing. Look at the places column along with the prices.

When Mali first read the makeup line, she laughed out loud. Eight per session was fewer than the people at the weekly editorial meeting in Bangkok. It also meant a group small enough to see every face. Once the laugh had passed, she checked first whether the session she had in mind, 2 p.m. or 4 p.m., was still open. When you read the places column, work out first whether the number is for one session or for the whole day.

Some programmes have plenty of room. Friday’s Random Play Dance takes 100 people, the most of the six, and the K-Craft Workshop and docent tour take 16 each. The other three take 6 or 8 at a time, so the number of people you spend that time with changes completely. Mali held dark cards against the three small ones and a pale card against the biggest.

How to apply for Seoul K-Content Week: seoulkcontent.com, first come, first served, closing early when full

You apply on the booking site the city set up, seoulkcontent.com. Applications opened on a first-come, first-served basis at 2 p.m. on Thursday 5 November, and each programme closes early once all its places are filled. The site has five date tabs, from 16 to 20 November, and tapping a date brings up that day’s programmes. You can pay as a guest without signing up, and one person can buy up to 10. If payment does not go through, you can ask on Instagram @seoul_kcontent or by email at seoul_kcontents@harrie.com.

Mali opened the page on the night of the day applications opened. At 2 p.m. she had been outside the station where she had arranged to meet Rina, so she was several hours behind the opening time. She stopped browsing the programmes and spread out the schedule for her sixth trip beside her. Monday was the day she would land in Seoul in the afternoon, and Wednesday and Friday each had an afternoon meeting. She wanted to keep Wednesday evening, after the meeting, free for walking on her own.

Once those were crossed out, Tuesday and Thursday were left. The 2 p.m. makeup class on Tuesday and the 11 a.m. cooking class on Thursday fitted the gaps exactly, and with the makeup touching on her work and the cooking purely for fun, the balance felt right too. There was also a 4 p.m. makeup session, but Mali chose 2 p.m. Starting early in the afternoon, she thought, would leave her time to see the light outside before evening. With both programmes added, she paused right in front of the pay button.

Mali scrolled back up and checked the dates and times one by one. She looked in turn at whether the date tab was on Tuesday the 17th, whether the makeup session was 2 p.m. and not 4 p.m., and whether the cooking class was Thursday the 19th at 11 a.m. With a programme like the makeup class that runs twice on the same day, it is easy to tap the wrong session, so check the date and session again before you pay. Only after she had finished paying for both as a guest did Mali lay her phone face down beside her trip schedule. Outside the window, it was already close to midnight.

Mali picked two of the cards she had paired up, turned them over and wrote a few words on the back. The pink card said “Tue 14:00 — passport” and the yellow card “Thu 11:00 — 4F”. She had copied over one line about bringing a passport, since the programmes are for international visitors only, and one about the cooking venue being on the 4th floor of the building. The other four cards went back into the bundle as they were.

To choose the same way, first mark the days you are in Seoul on the five boxes, then cross out the times taken by meetings or other bookings. Pick the programmes that fit the boxes that are left, then check their places and price in the table above together and apply. For programmes that run several times a day, like the makeup class or the Night City Photo Shot, choose the session time as well, to fit what comes before and after.

Wednesday and Friday at DDP: book Wednesday’s two experiences separately, Friday is one programme

If you want to combine several programmes in one day, look at Wednesday. On the 18th there is the docent tour from 2 p.m. to 3.20 p.m., and at the same DDP the Night City Photo Shot starts at 5.30 p.m. They are separate programmes, each booked on its own, and with a gap of a little over two hours between them they are easy to combine. On Friday the 20th, Random Play Dance, a single programme, opens at DDP Oullim Square with the Taekwondo performance at 2 p.m. and carries on into the dance class at 3 p.m. These are the two days you can spend the afternoon at DDP without moving between venues.

If you combine the two on Wednesday, the docent tour comes first. It begins with checking in at DDP and meeting the actor, and since it is a walking tour, the route may change with the weather or conditions on site. The tour ends at 3.20 p.m., leaving a gap until the first Night City Photo Shot session at 5.30 p.m., so you can take a break in and around DDP in between. The Night City Photo Shot runs five times, every 30 minutes, so it does not have to be the first session. You could also have dinner first and book the 7 p.m. or 7.30 p.m. session.

Mali pouted for a moment when she realised that these two days were, of all days, the ones with meetings in her schedule. Even so, she did not let it go. She took a silver-grey card from the bundle and added, small in one corner of the back, “DDP, two days — 18 & 20”. It was the line she would hand over first the next time someone asked about Seoul plans for that week. For anyone who could give a whole day to DDP, that one line would fill a Wednesday afternoon and evening.

The other three venues are each in a different neighbourhood. Monday’s craft is in Bukchon in Jongno, Tuesday’s makeup in Yongsan and Thursday’s cooking in Gangnam. If you are choosing one a day it makes no difference, but if you plan to join one to something else on the same day, think about the neighbourhood first.

How to get to DDP Oullim Square: Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station Exit 1

Friday’s Random Play Dance is held at DDP Oullim Square, so come out of Exit 1 of Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station on Lines 2, 4 and 5. Oullim Square is connected to Exit 1, and Exit 1 is also close to the DDP Market and the basement-level-2 entrances of the Design Lab and the Museum. If you come out of Exit 2, you are closer to the Design Lab’s first-floor entrance and the entrance to Dongdaemun History & Culture Park. On Friday you stay in the same square from the 2 p.m. Taekwondo performance to the 3 p.m. dance class, so Exit 1 is the only one you need to remember.

This route stays useful after the week is over. Next time you visit DDP for something else, remember Exit 1 for Oullim Square or the DDP Market, and Exit 2 for the Design Lab’s first floor or the park entrance. On an evening like the Night City Photo Shot, when you are shooting outside, you will be standing about for a long time, so do your coat buttons up before you leave the exit. Evening winds in mid-November are colder than you might expect.

What to bring on makeup class day: passport, 10 minutes early, clothes for the weather

All six programmes are only for people who are not Korean nationals, and you must bring a passport or an ID that shows your foreign nationality. Every one of the six also carries a request to arrive at the meeting point at least 10 minutes before the programme begins. There is a note, too, that photos and videos may be taken during the programme for the record and for promotion. Reading that, Mali laughed to herself that this time she might be the one in front of the camera.

That note gave Mali a small piece of homework. On a photo shoot she always stands behind the camera, watching the light on other people’s faces, but in the makeup class her own face might end up in the pictures. So when she chose what to wear on Tuesday, she thought about colour first. She settled on a knit close to her face in a shade like the pink card.

On the morning of Tuesday 17 November, the weather had turned colder and Mali got out her thick coat. The wind was noticeably sharper than on her last trip. But the moment she took hold of the door handle, the word “passport” on the back of the pink card came back to her. In Seoul she keeps her passport in the room safe, and today, out of habit, she had nearly gone out without it. Only after she had gone back, opened the safe and put the passport in the inner pocket of her bag did she close the door.

If you usually leave your passport at your accommodation, take it with you on this day. A valid ID that shows your foreign nationality will also do instead of a passport. What to wear differs a little by experience, too. For the dance, clothes and shoes you can dance in. For the docent tour, comfortable shoes, and for the Night City Photo Shot, clothes for the weather outside. If you are going to the cooking class, let them know about allergies or foods you avoid in advance.

2 p.m. on Tuesday, up to the makeup class door: arriving 40 minutes early

Mali reached 100 Hangang-daero, Yongsan-gu, at 1.20 p.m. Trying to keep to the request to arrive 10 minutes early, she had set off earlier still in case of traffic. That left 40 minutes until the start, and 30 minutes even until the 1.50 p.m. meeting time. Standing on the wide pavement and looking at the clock on her phone, she laughed before she could stop herself. It was a day when she had copied Rina’s “checking the finish” far too keenly.

Mali decided to spend the 30 minutes until the meeting time outside. She turned up her coat collar against the cold wind and strolled back and forth under the street trees, and between the almost bare branches the winter sky spread out in a pale grey. She took a grey card from the bundle and held it up to the sky. The sky had a little more blue in it than the card. That difference was her first discovery of the day.

While she made one more round under the trees, Mali went over the order of today’s class in her head. Explore K-beauty trends, learn makeup tips, create a look that suits your own face, then finish with a selfie: four steps. The last one, the selfie, was on her mind, so she switched on her phone camera and looked briefly at the face on the screen. Her cheeks had already gone pink in the cold wind, and she gave a small laugh to herself and switched the camera off.

At about 1.40 p.m., Mali sent Rina a short message. “I’m 40 minutes early. I got one sky colour.” Without waiting for a reply, she put her phone in her pocket and thought again that today was a day where work and play overlapped. At the magazine she always chooses colours for other people’s faces, but today she was learning colours for her own. The thought alone warmed her cheeks a little.

At 1.50 p.m., Mali straightened her coat collar and walked towards the glass door. She touched the passport in her bag’s inner pocket once with her fingertips and moved the pink card to the front of the bundle. Ten minutes before the start, right on the time she had been asked to come. At the door she took a breath and took hold of the handle.

Common Mistakes

• 01

  Believing the experiences start on Saturday the 14th

  Mali’s first circle was on Saturday. The 14th and 15th have only the booths at Gocheok Sky Dome, and the experiences start on Monday the 16th.

• 02

  Turning up thinking it is all “free experiences for international visitors”

  The dance and the craft are free, while the makeup class, Night City Photo Shot and cooking class are 5,000 won.

• 03

  Not checking the session again before paying

  The makeup class runs twice, at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Mali checked the date and session once more in front of the pay button.

• 04

  Leaving your passport at your accommodation

  Mali only remembered when her hand was on the door handle.

• 05

  Reaching the building but being late to the meeting point

  Meeting time is 10 minutes before the start. Mali arrived at 1.20 p.m., spent 30 minutes outside and walked to the door at 1.50 p.m.

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