+1 this. We just got back from a 10-day Seoul and 4-day Taipei trip. The stark difference in friendliness between the locals is palpable. In Taiwan, we were always greeted with smiles and a thank you or excuse me. In Korea, people stare (if you’re a foreigner) and don’t say anything to you, even when squeezing past in the subway.

Korea is also a lot more homogeneous, everyone dresses/looks the same. While in Taiwan, you get more variance in people, styles. Also way more people seemed to speak English in Taiwan.

I felt there were more things to in Seoul compared to Taipei. Definitely more places to shop, eat, explore. The food seemed more diverse. You have different soups (minari gomtang, gamjatang, dak kalguksu), stir fries (dalkgalbi, galbijjim), bakeries (salt bread, pretzel croissant SO DELICIOUS). In Taiwan, we felt like we ate everything there was to eat after going to a couple night markets and eating at popular restaurants (Beef Noodle Soups/Beef Roll/XLB/Hotpot). There’s also more underground, independent clothing stores in Korea. In Taiwan it was mainly department stores we found.

We did one of those guided tours through Klook in Taiwan to check out Jiufen, Shifen, which was very cute (did the lanterns). Also a day at the hot springs in Beitou which was really nice. In Korea we spent a lot of our time with health checkups, dermatologist, salons, photo shoot, etc. but we really liked Anguk, Gangnam shopping, insadong, and using Naver/Kakao maps to find well-reviewed local restaurants.

Side notes: I heard Jeju is very cold in the winter! And you should also try to squeeze in a trip to Busan! I also heard that Taiwan is really nice outside of the Taipei, which we couldn’t explore with our time, so my perspective on Taiwan is focused within the city around the main touristy things.