Reading a Korean building from the pavement, one stacked sign at a time

In Seoul, the restaurant you are looking for is often not on the street at all. It is on the third floor, above a pharmacy and a nail salon, and the only evidence is a sign fixed to the façade at about that height.

Signs stack in floor order

Commercial buildings rent each floor to a different business, and the signboards, ganpan (간판), usually climb the wall in the same order as the tenants. Count the rows from the pavement and you have a good guess at the floor. The word to find is cheung (층): 2층 is the second floor, and 지하 1층, also written B1, is one flight below the street.

Street level is the first floor

Korea counts from one, so there is no ground floor; 1층 is where you are standing. In some lifts the fourth-floor button reads F instead of 4, because the number sounds like the word for death. Naver Map and KakaoMap put the floor in the address line, which is worth reading before you set out.

The stairwell and the bathroom code

The way up is usually a narrow door beside the street-level shop, with a floor directory, cheungbyeol annae (층별 안내), just inside. Toilets are often shared and sit on the landing, not inside the café. Ask at the counter and you will be handed a key on a large tag, or a door code that is often printed on the receipt or taped beside the till.

The request is short: hwajangsil bimilbeonho allyeo juseyo, please tell me the bathroom code. It works in any building with a locked landing door.

화장실 비밀번호 알려 주세요.