My 4 Hour Journey to Find a Humidifier in South Korea!

Right before the first week of classes at Yonsei University, I came down with a cold. The air in my room at night was bothering my throat, so I decided to buy a humidifier. Surprisingly, it took me multiple hours, subway/bus transfers, and stores before I could find one. The first place I checked was a Daiso ten minutes from where I live in Dongdaemun. Daiso is where I was getting all my other groceries, and they have pretty much any basic living necessities you could need there. The only humidifier I could find was basically just a bowl you fill with water, but I decided to buy it, since it was only 2,000 won or ~$1.44.

After I returned to my apartment, I decided the glorified bowl wasn’t going to cut it. I needed something motorized. I googled where I could find a humidifier near Dongdaemun and was shown a supermarket called HomePlus. It had 9,999+ reviews on Naver Map and looked pretty large from the pictures. It was around 40-minutes away and took two buses to get there. The store had multiple floors filled with living necessities and large appliances. I explored for a while before resorting to asking the workers where the humidifiers were in Korean. I didn’t completely understand what some of them replied, but I could pick out that there were no humidifiers there. 

A bit frustrated, and still sick, I resorted to Google for more store recommendations. The next place I went to was Shinsegae Department Store in Myeongdong. It took me around 40-minutes to get there and one subway transfer. Shinsegae is a 12-floor department store which sells home goods, yet I couldn’t find a humidifier there either.

Anyone who knows a bit about South Korea and shopping can probably guess where I went next in Myeongdong. Obviously, the famous 12-story Daiso, a much larger version of where I went in the morning. I would have put a lot of money on there being a small humidifier there. Yet, as I climbed the stairs to each floor and looked around, I couldn’t find one. In a last ditch effort, I asked a worker, back on the first floor now, and they said there were no humidifiers here. Looking back, I probably should have just asked first.

The final place I went to had crossed my feed a few times while I was searching for places on Google, yet it was never the first option. Also, it was a chain I had been to a few times previously, and it didn’t seem like a store that would sell humidifiers. Anyways, I headed over there, only a few minutes walk away. Low and behold, on the second floor, were over FORTY small humidifiers (yes, I counted) to choose from, at an average price of about $18. The store was Artbox, a chain that sells “a wide variety of lifestyle, stationery, and gift items with a focus on cute, colorful, and unique designs…” according to Google.

Since then, about 18 days ago now, I’ve only used the humidifier probably three times. It didn’t seem to help my dry throat, which got better on its own a few days later, but I’m hoping it will come in handy in the winter, when the air is drier.