Hina missed the booking and joined the on-site waitlist with her passport: The Hyundai Seoul Christmas Village, the 6F desk and a New York street from 1985

On the morning of Sunday 6 December, Hina stood by the window of her room, opened her passport and closed it again. She had a show to see that evening, and the whole day before it was empty. She had decided where to spend it a month ago: the Christmas Village on the fifth floor of The Hyundai Seoul in Yeouido. The only problem was that Hina had no ticket.

Hina is twenty-one, works in concert promotion at a marketing company in Tokyo, and comes to Seoul about twice a month. Putting lines like “Booking opens 11:00” on posters is part of that job. Yet at 11 a.m. on Thursday 19 November, when advance booking for overseas visitors reopened, Hina was at her desk in Tokyo correcting exactly that kind of poster. She had been polishing someone else’s opening time and missed her own. When she read again the line she had written in her notebook at the National Gugak Center the day before, “Next time, tickets before flights”, she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to hold in a laugh.

For Hina, who catches weekend flights for limited-edition merchandise, the Christmas Village had been in the “daytime on this trip” box from the start. The village opens each year with a new theme, and its seven market shops open along with it. She could see the show again next month, but this year’s street would only be there until 31 December. Hina hung the thick coat she had brought out for the cold on the back of the chair and decided that today, the street would come before the show. Apart from having no ticket, the plan was perfect.

One way in was left. Overseas visitors without a Korean mobile number or a The Hyundai Hi account can put their name on the on-site waitlist on the day they visit. Hina had neither. Visitors sign up with a passport at the desk in the 6F Service Lounge, and registration opens at 11.30 a.m. Hina read those few lines twice without a sound, then cleared out the front pocket of her bag for her passport.

The Cue — At a glance

The Hyundai Seoul Christmas Village runs on 5F, Sounds Forest, until Thursday 31 December 2026, and the village alone closes on Thursday 26 November and Friday 18 December. If you are an overseas traveller without a ticket, take your passport to the 6F Service Lounge before 11.30 a.m. on the day. Signing up with your passport puts you on a waitlist rather than giving you a ticket, so if you have only one day for it, booking ahead in Klook’s second round (19 November, 11 a.m.) makes the day easier to plan.

How long does The Hyundai Seoul Christmas Village run? 10 November to 31 December 2026, Sounds Forest on 5F

This year’s village opened on Tuesday 10 November 2026 and runs until Thursday 31 December. It is on 5F of The Hyundai Seoul, in Sounds Forest. 10 November is the day the village opened, not the day booking opened. The first round of advance booking opened earlier, at 11 a.m. on 5 November, on The Hyundai Hi. Mix up the dates and you end up waiting for an opening that has already passed, so pick out only the rows you need from the table below.

Open in Kakao Map — Yeouido Station

As announced in November 2026.

The row to check your travel dates against first is the third. Avoid those two days and you can go on any day within the period. If you plan to book ahead, copy 11 a.m. on 19 November from the second row into your calendar. That was the row Hina missed. At the desk in her room, she wrote “Klook round 2 — missed” in the corner of her notebook and started writing out today’s route just below it.

When is it closed? Only the village closes, on 26 November and 18 December

The village closes on two days, Thursday 26 November and Friday 18 December. On those days only the village shuts, and the department store stays open as usual. If you assume the 5F village is open because the store is, you will make the trip for nothing on those two days. If your trip includes a Thursday or a Friday, check those two dates first. Travellers who come for weekend shows, as Hina does, are especially likely to run into Friday 18 December.

Hina’s date was Sunday 6 December, which missed both closing days. She drew a circle round it and wrote the department store’s hours beside it. The Hyundai Seoul is open 10.30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 10.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. Friday to Sunday. The restaurant floor is open from 10.30 a.m. to 10 p.m., so it closes a little later. Working in concert promotion has given Hina the habit of looking at the weekday before the date, and this time too she checked the weekday first.

How do you get into the Christmas Village? Advance booking and the on-site waitlist, with separate routes for local and overseas visitors

There are four ways in, and which ones you can use depends on who you are. The village works on advance booking, and without a booking you go in through the on-site waitlist. People who can use both a Korean mobile number and a The Hyundai Hi account, and overseas travellers missing either one, go to different counters. So before you set off, decide which line is yours. Hina, too, only packed her bag after running her finger along the fourth row of the table.

The rows for overseas travellers are the bottom two. If you can plan ahead, Klook is the least stressful route, and the operator itself recommends booking on Klook in advance. A Klook ticket has to be swapped for a physical ticket at the 6F Service Lounge, and because the same person cannot buy twice, your passport is checked there. So even on a day you have booked through Klook, make sure you bring your passport. If, like Hina, you have already missed the booking window, only the bottom row of the two is left.

If you are going without a booking, it is the fourth row. You sign up in person with your passport at the Christmas Village Information Desk in the 6F Service Lounge, and when your turn comes you go into the village on 5F. Registration opens at 11.30 a.m. but may close early depending on space that day, and entry depends on how things are on site. For Hina there was nothing to choose: this was the only route left. She moved her passport to the front pocket of her bag and left her room before 11.

Where do overseas visitors join the on-site waitlist? The 6F Service Lounge desk, your passport, 11.30 a.m.

The easiest way from Yeouido Station to The Hyundai Seoul is underground. From the Exit 3 side of Yeouido Station on Lines 5 and 9, follow the underground moving walkway for about 500 m and it brings you to the B2 store entrance. Hina had walked this route once before, on a pop-up day. That time she had been pulling a suitcase, but today it was just a small bag and her coat over her arm, so walking was easy even on the moving walkway. Coming up from B2, she reached 6F at 11.10.

Hina waited beside the desk for registration to open. The only thing to do in those twenty minutes was to have her passport ready, and she checked it three times. It was exactly the way people in a theatre queue take out their tickets and put them away again. On show days Hina is usually the one standing by the entrance, watching the audience hold out their tickets. Today she was the one waiting for her turn to hold something out.

At 11.30, Hina held out her passport with both hands. Signing up was quicker than she expected, and her name went on the waitlist. Hina decided for herself that she would go back up to 5F at about 2 p.m. That meant keeping two and a half hours free. Hina worked out the number, her mouth dropping open for a moment, then remembered that tonight was a show night. Even going up at about 2 and seeing the village, she would have plenty of time before the show.

If you join the on-site waitlist, build this wait into your plan from the start. You do not go in the moment you sign up — you put your name down and wait for your turn. Because you need to arrive when registration opens, it is also hard to fit anything else into the morning before it. You can spend the waiting time having lunch in the department store or looking round other floors. Hina took out her phone and set an alarm.

On a waitlist day, it is easiest to plan on spending the morning in this building. You need to reach 6F before 11.30, so work out when to leave your accommodation backwards from there. The department store opens at 10.30, so come in after that and go straight up to 6F. It is not too late to plan your evening once you have signed up. If you have a show in the evening, as Hina did, it is easier on your nerves to keep the whole day free.

Booking ahead on Klook: the second round opens at 11 a.m. on Thursday 19 November

If you are an overseas visitor who wants a ticket in advance, make a note of the date for Klook’s second booking round. Round two opens at 11 a.m. on Thursday 19 November. Advance booking for overseas visitors is handled through tour and activity platforms such as Klook. On a trip with fixed dates, you can plan that whole day around the time you have booked. If you want your browser window open the moment booking starts, the first step is not to schedule anything else at that hour.

Even on the day you use a booked ticket, 6F comes first. A Klook ticket is used after you swap it for a physical ticket at the 6F Service Lounge. Booked or not, it is easiest to remember that for overseas travellers the village starts on 6F. Once her alarm was set, Hina drew a small arrow next to “Klook round 2 — missed” in her notebook and added “Next time, an alarm at the office too”. It struck her as funny all over again that someone who tells other people when things open had not set an alarm for her own.

Choosing between booking and the on-site waitlist is easiest if you go by how fixed your plans are. If your travel date and time are already set, it is better to book ahead on Klook and build the day around that time. If you would rather decide on the day, depending on the weather or your other plans, the waitlist suits you. Bear in mind, though, that waitlist registration may close early and entry depends on space that day. If there is only one day you can go, choose booking.

Rules to know before you go in: up to four people at a time, no strollers, no re-entry

If you are going with children or a pet, or carrying a lot of shopping, look over the table of rules before you set off. If you turn up without knowing them, you may have to go back to leave your things somewhere. Not many of the rows applied to Hina, who was on her own, but one row at the bottom changed the order of her day. Seeing it, Hina decided to have lunch before going into the village.

Look at the last row first. Once you leave you cannot go back in, so anything you want to do in the village has to be done while you are inside. That was also why Hina set her alarm twenty-five minutes before 2 p.m., the time she had picked to go back up. If you sort out your bag and finish your water before going in, then once inside you can simply look at the street without needing to step out.

If there are five of you, you cannot all go in together at once. With a baby, bring a carrier instead of a stroller, and sort out your shopping and any coffee you are drinking before you go in. For a group of more than four, deciding before you set off who goes in with whom saves milling about at the entrance. Hina, with just one small bag holding her show merchandise, simply nodded along to these rows.

Pets can come in only in a carrier or a covered pet bag. The gallery inside the village offers live pet drawing, with the artist changing from period to period, and bookings for it are taken separately. A notice also says the schedule may change or be cancelled depending on the artist. If you want a drawing of your pet, treat getting into the village and booking the drawing as two separate jobs. Hina, who has no pet, skipped this row, but she thought it rather fitting that a village built on a story about cats should have a pet gallery.

Spending the wait in the department store: floor names, the restaurant floor and the QR signs on 2F to 4F

Two and a half hours is plenty of time to fill inside the department store. Every floor of The Hyundai Seoul has a name, so knowing the names alone makes it easy to pick where to go. 6F is Dining & Art, 5F is Sounds Forest, 4F is Life & Balance, 3F is About Fashion, and 2F is Modern Mood. 1F is Exclusive Label, B1 is Tasty Seoul and B2 is Creative Ground. Hina read the names from the top down like a set list.

On her way down to 3F, Hina saw a QR code sign beside the escalator. The QR codes placed on each floor from 2F to 4F are for joining the on-site waitlist. But that route is for people with a The Hyundai Hi account and a Korean mobile phone. Hina took out her phone, remembered the fourth row of the table she had traced that morning, and put it back. She had already put her name down on 6F, so there was no need to queue twice.

Lunch was on the restaurant floor. With a bowl of soup she did not know the name of in front of her, Hina sent Noah a message. “No ticket, so I queued with my passport. I’m going to try heading up to New York at about 2.” Reading it back after sending, it sounded like someone about to board a plane, but the habit of writing only times and places was straight out of the notices she writes at work. Without waiting for a reply, Hina turned her phone face down and picked up her spoon before the soup went cold.

Even after lunch, she still had an hour. Hina sat on a quiet bench, opened her notebook and drew today’s waiting as a timetable: 6F at 11.10, signed up at 11.30, in at 2, and then the evening show. Once the boxes were drawn, the waiting time turned out to be as long as the gap between a rehearsal and the performance itself. Strangely, though, it had not felt dull. While she waited, she had got to know the building one floor at a time.

What is there to see inside the village? A 1985 New York street inspired by Yorkville, and seven market shops

This year’s village is called “Christmas in New York City”. It is a Christmas market inspired by the streets of Yorkville in New York, set in New York in 1985, with a street of brownstones, a newsstand and yellow cabs. Thirteen buildings finished in red brick stand along it, the tallest reaching 10 m. Billboards and neon signs hang between the buildings, and a yellow taxi stands by the kerb. When her alarm went off, Hina went back up to 5F at about 2 and stepped onto that street.

Beneath the street runs a story about Santa Harry, who wants to bring presents to everyone, travelling all over the city with the stray cats. In a New York where the lights stay on all night with people enjoying Christmas, Harry finds it hard to deliver his presents, so the cats who live in the alleys help him, slipping past people unseen. The village came to New York this year after Harry’s Granary in 2022, Harry’s Dream Shop in 2023, The Moving Grand Theatre in 2024 and Harry’s Christmas Workshop in 2025. Hina, who promotes shows for a living, ran the story through her head like a script the whole way along the street, reading each building as a piece of the set.

Seven market shops are open along the street, including a New York souvenir shop, a deli, a sweets and chocolate shop, a records and tapes shop and a gallery doing live pet drawing. At the deli there are three kinds of cronut at 5,500 won each and a New York-style cake at 29,000 won. Detailed schedules may change, though, and some shops can be visited only after a separate advance booking or after waiting on site. Getting into the village does not mean you can visit every shop straight away, so if there is a shop you really want to visit, head there first.

The shop where Hina lingered longest was the record shop. It has a premium listening lounge for two people for sixty minutes, with seats booked through The Hyundai Hi. Without an account, Hina could not use it this time. Instead she stopped in front of the mystery vinyl. At 16,900 won a record, with only 100 put out in the shop each day, it was the kind of thing Hina, who has a weakness for the word “limited”, could not walk past, and she held two of them side by side for a long time before choosing one.

One more lap before you leave: no re-entry, so finish everything inside

Hina had got as far as the exit, then turned round and walked the street once more. On the first lap she had been so busy looking up at the neon that she had walked straight past one shop. On the second lap she stopped briefly in front of that sweets and chocolate shop and took a photo of nothing but the warm light in its window. Once you leave you cannot go back in, so before you go out of the exit, take care of every spot you want to photograph, everything you want to buy and every corner of the street you want to see again. Just stopping in front of the exit and looking back down the street, as Hina did, is often enough to remind you of what you missed.

On the second walk, she noticed different things. The first time she had only looked up at the neon on the upper floors, but now the windows and doors at the bottom of the buildings and the shape of the yellow taxi by the kerb caught her eye. It was like seeing a show for the second time and noticing the corners of the stage. Hina hugged the paper bag with her record in it to her chest and walked towards the exit, and only after looking back one last time did she go out through the door.

Getting to The Hyundai Seoul: the underground moving walkway from Yeouido Station Exit 3, Exit 4 for the main entrance, Yeouinaru Station Exit 1 for the rear entrance

If you are coming by metro, Yeouido Station on Lines 5 and 9 is the easiest. From the Exit 3 side, the underground moving walkway takes you about 500 m straight to the B2 entrance, and from Exit 4 you walk about 400 m straight on outside to the main entrance. If you are coming from Yeouinaru Station on Line 5, leave by Exit 1 and head for the rear entrance. On a day when you need to go straight up to 6F to join the waitlist, the Exit 3 route, which never takes you above ground, is the least confusing.

The column to look at in this table is the last one. It is the same department store, but depending on the exit you arrive at a different door: B2, the main entrance or the rear entrance. If you come in at B2, go up to 6F or 5F. If you come in through the main or rear entrance, the floors you head for are the same. On her way back, Hina tried the above-ground route from the Exit 4 side for the first time. When she put her coat back on and stepped outside, the wind was cold.

Choose your exit by the weather and your luggage that day. On cold or rainy days, or when you have a suitcase, the underground route from the Exit 3 side is easiest because you never come up to street level. On a clear day, if you want to walk and take in the view on the main-entrance side, the street-level route from Exit 4 is fine too. Hina chose the street route despite the cold wind because she wanted a breath of fresh air before going into the theatre. If it is raining, you can simply walk the underground route you came by in reverse on the way back.

What you can still use after the village closes: Sounds Forest on 5F, the 1F Tourist Desk and the underground link from Yeouido Station

Some of what is useful in this building lasts beyond 31 December. Sounds Forest on 5F is a floor with a pop-up area all year round, so you can come back for other pop-ups after the village has been cleared away. If you have come with a suitcase, you can leave it at the 1F Tourist Desk, which also lends strollers. There are lockers on B1, B3 and B4. And if you are an overseas traveller who has finished shopping, you can get a tax refund at the 6F Service Lounge.

The underground link from the Exit 3 side of Yeouido Station is especially handy on rainy or cold days. You can walk all the way to the B2 entrance without coming up to street level, so it is not much trouble even with a suitcase. How to plan the queue, the floors and your luggage on a pop-up day is set out in more detail in Hina’s The Hyundai Seoul pop-up piece. If you come back to this building after Christmas, you can follow the steps in that piece as they are.

Opening the notebook again: no ticket, passport, before 11.30

At the ticket gates at Yeouido Station, Hina lifted the record bag once and looked inside before opening her notebook again. Under yesterday’s line, “Next time, tickets before flights”, she added one more for today: “No ticket? Passport, before 11:30”. Today was the first time Hina had found out for herself that even after missing the tickets, one way in is still left. And that to use it, you have to keep the morning free.

Common Mistakes

• 01

  Taking 10 November as the day booking opens

  10 November is the day the village opened. The first booking round had already opened earlier, on 5 November.

• 02

  Assuming the village is open because the store is

  On 26 November and 18 December only the department store opens, while the village is closed.

• 03

  Overseas visitors reaching for their phones at the QR codes on 2F to 4F

  Without a Korean mobile number or a The Hyundai Hi account, that is not your route — yours is the 6F desk.

• 04

  Treating the passport sign-up as a ticket

  Signing up puts your name on the waitlist, and entry depends on space that day.

• 05

  Stepping out for one more photo and trying to come back

  Once you leave, you cannot go back in.

FAQ

Recap — 30 seconds before you go