Naksan Wild Cats and Kaesong Mandu Koong

On March 5, 2025 1 Comments - Korea 2025, Travel

Before heading up Naksan to look for cats and and eat mandu, we had to go to Seoul station:

KTX can’t take payments with foreign cards online right now so we went to Seoul Station to buy tickets. The station is huge and open and full of light and the buzz of travel. There are cafes and food vendors everywhere so you can buy a snack, sit on the steps in the sunshine and wait for your train. And you can go right down to the tracks even if you don’t have a ticket.

Seoul Station street view
Seoul Station view of the tracks with KTX train arriving
KTX bullet train: 305km/hour, Seoul to Busan in just over 2 hours
View from Seoul old city wall near Dongdaemun
From the Seoul City wall: Lotte Castle right in the middle is where our apartment is in Sungin-dong
Trail near Naksan Park along the outer wall
City wall outer path
Naksan wild cats
There are lots of cat colonies up along the wall. People feed them and they have bushes and grass to hide in and rooftops to sleep on.
Naksan kitten
As we were walking I said: “I usually start seeing cats around here” and this little kitten burst out of the bushes right in front of us. Perfect timing. I have never seen a kitten here before.
Woman feeding chicken to Naksan wild cats
Naksan wild cats get a chicken dinner
Naksan wild cats scratching branch
Nature’s scratching post…better than Ikea couch
Naksan cats
More cats…
Woman with Naksan cats
Even more cats…
Man on moped delivery near Naksan park up the old city wall in Seoul
Working man: I was taking a picture down the road and he just zoomed through.
View of Dongdaemun from above with 2 women walking
Dongdaemun ơn the way down
Mandu soup at Kaesong Mandu Koong
Meat dumpling soup 고기만두국 at Kaesong Mandu Koong.
Gwangjang Market
Quick walk through Gwangjang Market for some hotteok 호떡 on the way home.

One Comment

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    coffee cats BBQ Lazy day in Seoul - TigerSalad November 10, 2025

    […] A walk up the old city wall near Dongdaemun to feed cats was not a great success. It was a hot afternoon and they were probably asleep in the shade somewhere. Instead, we stopped at the little 3 story “Cafe Reading Cat” overlooking the west end of Seoul and sipped coffee in the sunshine. Cats are everywhere outdoors in Seoul. People who live here seem to take care of the homeless ones, bringing them food or setting up little shelters for them. If you want to see a post where we found lots of cats up here, check this one. […]

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