The Seoul 'convenience stores' fighting loneliness

From comforting bowls of ramen to company, these stores are South Korea's latest effort to fight loneliness.

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At 29, she is perhaps not the person most would have imagined wanting to take advantage of the South Korean capital's latest efforts to combat loneliness.

But Hee-Kyung visits every day to grab the free instant ramen noodles and spend hours chatting with other visitors and social workers.

"I tell myself, 'another day, another escape from feeling lonely'," Hee-kyung says.

A teenage runaway, she no longer talks to anyone from her family. The friends she has she met online, through the shared love of K-pop group SuperJunior, and they live far away. Currently unemployed, she has no work mates to chat to.