Changsin-dong: The Stationery and Toy Street

The first thing you notice is the sound: plastic bags rustling, a shopkeeper calling out a price, someone squeezing a bread-shaped squishy just to hear it sigh. The stationery and toy street in Changsin-dong, in Jongno-gu, is a narrow lane lined on both sides with dozens of wholesale stationery and toy shops. It has been supplying Seoul's neighbourhood stationery stores for decades, and over the past year it has turned into one of the city's most talked-about places to shop for fun.

The reason is the squishy craze. Korean shoppers call the slow-rising squishies malangi, and the newer slime-and-squishy hybrids slangi. Add wax-coated balls you crack open with your fingers, bread and fruit squishies, and mushroom-shaped ones, and you have the shelves people now cross the city for. In July 2026 the street was packed early in the morning with families, couples in their twenties and thirties, and foreign visitors still pulling suitcases. Sellers say an item that goes viral on social media can sell out on the day it is restocked. Most of these toys cost from about 3,000 to 15,000 won each.

The rest of the street is pure stationery: pencils by the dozen, sticker sheets, erasers sold from open bins, craft kits, keyrings, puzzles and board games. Because the shops are wholesalers at heart, prices sit below what you pay in a mall, and you can usually buy single pieces. Go on a weekday morning if you want room to browse. Weekend afternoons are when the lane fills up.

Getting there is easy. Walk from Dongdaemun Station (Line 1, Exit 4) or from Dongmyo Station (Lines 1 and 6, Exit 6 or 7). Dongmyo Station also serves the Dongmyo flea market, so many shoppers now do both in one morning: vintage first, then a bag of squishies on the way back. Keep a little cash for the smallest counters, and keep your bags light.

Hongdae: Sticker and Keyring Select Shops

If Changsin-dong is about volume, Hongdae is about taste. The streets between Hongik University Station and Yeonnam-dong are full of small select shops that stock goods from independent illustrators and one-person studios: sticker sheets, memo pads, phone charms and the soft doll keyrings that hang from so many bags in Seoul. Korean shoppers call decorating a planner with stickers and tape dakku, short for diary decorating, and Hongdae is where its supplies are easiest to find.

The best-known stop is object, a select shop built around goods from small makers. Its flagship in Seogyo-dong, at 13 Wausan-ro 35-gil, is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., according to the shop's official site, and stocks stickers, keyrings, stationery and small living goods, with a fourth-floor space called Objet Sangga. The keyring wall is the part you will see on social media. Prices are those of handmade goods rather than wholesale ones, so plan for a few thousand won for a sticker sheet and more for a keyring. Object also runs a branch in Samcheong-dong, near Bukchon, if you are already in the palace area.

From object it is a short walk to the character-goods shops near the station exits, and to rows of capsule-toy machines; our guide to Seoul's gacha shops covers how those work and how to pay. With object open until 9 p.m., Hongdae works well as a late-afternoon stop after a day elsewhere.

Seongsu: Point of View and the Pen-and-Paper Crowd

For a quieter kind of stationery, head east to Seongsu-dong. Point of View, at 18 Yeonmujang-gil, is a three-floor stationery shop that feels closer to a small museum. Its floors are named Tool, Scene and Archive, and they move from pencils, inks and notebooks to desk objects and collected pieces. It opened as a flagship in late 2022 and has since become a regular stop for people who care about how a pen feels on paper.

The official site lists daily hours of 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., with last entry sometimes a few minutes earlier, and one regular closing day a month that the shop announces on Instagram. Check before you go. In autumn the shelves fill with diaries and refills for the coming year, and Point of View's own diary book and travel-notebook refills are among the things people come for. Pencils, small notebooks and cards make good gifts that fit in a carry-on.

Point of View also co-hosted a stationery fair at COEX in 2025, which tells you how big the paper-goods scene has become here. Seongsu itself is full of pop-up stores, so pair the shop with a walk along Yeonmujang-gil and its side streets.

The Big-Store Floors: Hottracks, Department Stores and Chains

Not every stationery run needs a special trip. Some of Seoul's best browsing is in large stores you will pass anyway. Kyobo Book Centre's Gwanghwamun store, in the basement of the Kyobo Life building at 1 Jongno, opens from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, according to Kyobo's store page. Its Hottracks section sells pens, notebooks, planners, desk goods and gifts next to the books, which makes it a good rainy-day stop or a late-evening one. Kyobo also has a branch in Hapjeong, a stop from Hongdae.

Department stores are worth a look too. Point of View runs a second shop on the second basement floor of The Hyundai Seoul in Yeouido, open from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Thursday and to 8:30 p.m. Friday to Sunday, following the department store's own closing days. For everyday stationery and character goods, the Artbox chain has branches across Seoul. For the cheapest pens, tape and storage, Daiso is hard to beat; our Daiso Korea shopping guide walks through its aisles.

Visitors are clearly finding these shops. A Korea Tourism Organization analysis of foreign visitors' card payments found that payments at stationery shops rose 48.7 percent in January to September 2025 compared with a year earlier, alongside gacha shops and bookstores. Most big stores take foreign cards without trouble, so there is little reason to carry much cash here.