Seoul Gallery
A free digital gallery beneath City Hall
Day 4 began somewhere unexpected: down a flight of stairs, in the basement of Seoul City Hall, where the city has tucked a free digital gallery that is equal parts playground and time machine. From 9:30 to noon we wandered B1 and B2 with no admission fee and no real agenda — Seoul rebuilt in Minecraft, an immersive room that floats you over the rooftops, and a layer of centuries-old ruins glowing under glass. It was, hands down, the fun stop of the trip. Come walk it with us.
Down the stairs, into the past
You do not expect to find a Joseon-era settlement under a government building, but there it was: a hall of excavated stone foundations, preserved where they were dug up and lit like the treasure they are. Beside it sat a tan relief model of old Seoul — a whole settlement shrunk into a display case, rooftops and lanes and all. We spent a while just leaning over the glass, picking out where the streets used to run.
Then the mood flipped. Up in the bright gallery lobby the early-morning grogginess wore off fast, and the first thing most of us did was grab a selfie. Centuries of history downstairs, a giant cheerful welcome upstairs — this was clearly going to be a different kind of visit.
SEOULCRAFT: the city, rebuilt in pixels
Then we turned a corner into SEOULCRAFT — Seoul rebuilt, block by block, inside Minecraft. A whole wall of pixel-art city greeted us, N Seoul Tower rendered in blocky perfection, and we may have made some involuntary noises. A computer-science group meeting a metaverse version of an entire city? We were exactly the right audience.
This part you play, not just look at. A few of us claimed the keyboard and went straight to building, while the rest crowded round a hands-on table, stacking little green pixel blocks into our own tiny skyline. For a station built with kids in mind, it held a roomful of university students for a surprisingly long time.
Flying over the city (and meeting Hechi)
The far rooms were where the gallery really showed off. We stepped into a dark immersive media room and a wall-sized screen swept us into "Seoul Dal — Flying High With You," the city's giant sky balloon carrying us up over the rooftops. Next door, an interactive globe glowed on its own spherical screen, spinning to wherever we tapped the panel.
On the way out we found Seoul's softer side: "Seoul, My Soul," the city's brand, watched over by Hechi — the pink mythical guardian lion who is far cuter than any guardian needs to be. Naturally, we took a souvenir photo card with him before heading up to the surface.
From the gallery we surfaced back into the city, split into teams, and scattered across the centre to chase down lunch on our own — a free morning of pixels and relics, with an afternoon at TOPIS still to come.