Suwon fortune teller in Ingye-dong: a 90-minute reading at Maehwa

Why I looked for a fortune teller in Ingye-dong, Suwon

Maehwa Seonnyeo Bosal in Ingye-dong, Suwon is a sinjeom (shamanic fortune-telling) sanctuary near Suwon City Hall Station. I'm living through the absolutely unhinged daily grind of senior year, swinging between existential dread and forced positivity, wandering around lost — and it suddenly reminded me of a sinjeom reading I got four years ago.

Back then it was just a New Year's fortune thing with friends, but this time I actually wanted to know if my life was heading in an okay direction. So after digging around, I booked Maehwa Seonnyeo Bosal, who's supposedly famous for being spot-on in Suwon.

How to book a reading at Maehwa Seonnyeo Bosal

Booking is by phone or text, which made it simpler than I expected. As someone with a serious phone phobia, that was honestly a huge relief.

I had plans to be in Suwon over a weekend and tried to go then too, but apparently she goes on prayer retreats through the weekend and isn't at the sanctuary. So I booked a Tuesday afternoon slot instead and headed to Suwon City Hall Station.

Getting to Maehwa Seonnyeo Bosal from Suwon City Hall Station

It's about a 5-minute walk from Exit 8 of Suwon City Hall Station. As you walk along...

you'll see the entrance to Castle Tower. Keep going until you reach the pharmacy out front, then call — she'll tell you how to get in.

You get a text like this as your appointment time approaches on the day. When I arrived and called, she kindly told me exactly where to go, and by the time I reached the 6th floor the door was already propped open, so I didn't even need to look for it — a total lifesaver for someone as directionally challenged as me.

It totally feels like a regular home, so having a sanctuary tucked inside was a fresh kind of space.

What the 90-minute reading covered

My reading with Maehwa Seonnyeo Bosal started before I even sat down. I wasn't nervous at all up to that point, just curious — but the moment I set my bag down to sit,

Did your grandmother pass away? Your maternal grandmother?

she said. My grandmother had actually passed away recently, and she nailed it without asking a single question first — my trust in her shot straight up. She tried to look into my parents' fortunes too, but since I'm apparently not a great daughter and didn't know their exact birthdates, we skipped that and moved on to my compatibility with my boyfriend and my older sister's saju instead.

She said I need to be careful during the years of the pig, ox, and horse — and this year happens to be the year of the horse. So she told me to be extra, extra careful for the rest of the year.

• Don't ride kickboards or bikes
• Be especially careful near your place at night
• Don't go to the mountains

What impressed me was that the neighborhood where I live really is that quiet — restaurants close by 9pm and the only things out and about are cats and students coming home from hagwon, and the villa complex I live in is dark enough that you need a flashlight at night. I never mentioned any of this, but she said things like "your neighborhood looks really dark at night, doesn't it?" and "there aren't many people around" — like she was seeing it directly. That part was wild.

She also told me a bunch of other small, detailed things that I'm keeping as my own little secret, haha. Oh — she said my saju is lacking in "wood," so the colors that bring me wealth are green and light green, and told me to grow a plant. She could picture the exact plant but couldn't remember its name, so she searched hard online to find it for me.

By the time the whole reading wrapped up, an hour and a half had gone by — wow. She went through everything so thoroughly that it ended up feeling like a moment of pure healing.

Is a Suwon fortune-telling visit worth it?

The sinjeom reading at Maehwa Seonnyeo Bosal is one way to try to anticipate and prepare for the future, but it also felt like a form of life counseling, which made it a genuinely good experience. Of course, don't forget it should be a tool to help you find your own strength to move forward rather than something to blindly believe in — but when life gets complicated, I fully recommend it. Everyone go buy the dip on Maehwa Seonnyeo Bosal, haha.

+ Extra info: to head back to the station, from the entrance turn left, keep going straight, and go in through Exit 9!

((If you come up through Exit 9 on your way there instead, the gates of hell open — be careful, haha.))