Seoul has 467 neighborhoods.
I’m exploring every single one.

What is Welcome to My Dong?

Welcome to My Dong is an ongoing YouTube and Instagram documentary series in which I, Bart, explore all 467 legal neighborhoods of Seoul, South Korea, one by one.

After living in Seoul for more than eight years, I quickly realized the city had far more to offer than the viral locations endlessly repeated online. Beyond the K-pop, K-drama filming spots, trendy cafés, and polished tourist attractions lies another Seoul, one filled with hidden histories, Cold War remnants, forgotten alleys, mountain villages, strange architecture, folklore, urban legends, and everyday stories that make the city endlessly fascinating. Welcome to My Dong explores the good, the bad, and the ugly of Seoul. Not just the version neatly served too often on a plate, but the deeper, messier, more human city hidden in plain sight.

One of the most common comments underneath the videos is:

“I am Korean and I didn’t even know this existed.”

That alone probably gives you a good idea of what this project is about.

At the same time, the project has unintentionally become an archive of a rapidly changing city. Old neighborhoods disappear, buildings get demolished, alleyways become unrecognizable, and local stories slowly fade away. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Through videos, photography, local interactions, and research, Welcome to My Dong aims to document and preserve pieces of Seoul before they are gone forever.