Myeong-Dong 명동

Myeong-Dong is Korea's trendiest shopping district. Many of their stores sell brand name clothes (mid to high-end), cosmetics, shoes, handbags, and accessories. It's catered towards young people so the stores are open until very late and there's also a decent nightlife in the area. It's constantly busy.. and when I say busy, I mean move-a-metre-every-10-seconds-busy when you're actually in it. The variety of stores is absolutely mindblowing.. (not).. I counted 4 Skin Food shops, 4 The Face Shop stores, 3 Adidas, 6 or 7 Starbucks, 2 Etude Houses.. I'm sure there are so many more repeats! Ridiculous... butchea - pretty much anything made in the USA is very expensive. Like I mentioned before, they have the "Holt Renfrew" of Korea, too and 4 main department stores that sell high-end items.

Right when you walk up the stairs from the subway... which, by the way, you have to transfer 2 times to get to from KU!
I spent the day with Flo while most of the people went on a city tour -- it's so much easier shopping with just one other person or by myself than a group of 6. It was almost 3PM and neither of us have eaten a meal so we hit up a random, welcoming, and modest restaurant a few blocks away from the subway with the sign "English OK" on the front.
Funnily enough, this place has been a hot spot for Korean celebrities. Can you spot any?
DBSK, Rain, SNSD, Boa.. to name a few. Inside, the walls are totally covered with messages from celebrities and customers visiting from around the world.
Getting started with appies + really flavourful seaweed soup!
I felt like Bibimbap so we both had it. Bibimbap is white rice in a hot stone bowl (it was sizzling when it arrived on the table -- made the rice crispy) with a bunch of sauteed and seasoned vegetables on top. You mix it up with gochujang, a semi-sweet chile pepper paste. Usually, Koreans make this dish using leftover appetizers from their fridge so it's a "leftovers" dish. It's topped with a raw egg and seaweed.Mix mix mix!
Outdoor shoe vendor selling cheap $20 shoes. The largest shoe size is 250 which is approximately a size 8 women's. I'm having a hard time finding shoes because the 250 is almost always sold out and my feet are 8.5!
Fact: Myeong-dong is also the ninth most expensive street in the world in terms of floorspace rents.
Etude House is a low-end cosmetics shop aimed towards teens and is a sister company of Laneige. The packaging is really cute and girly (sort of Anna Sui-like), the products are very inexpensive, and apparently the quality is quite decent. It was too packed to actually shop. Interestingly, there are more male SAs than female in these cosmetic stores (and, poor things, they have to wear such an awful shade of pink)! There are always SAs out in the front, shouting at you, trying to get you to come in. Actually, because of the amount of Japanese tourists who shop in that area, a lot of the employees start shouting to you in Japanese when they know you're not Korean.
The one thing I don't like is how SAs follow you around the store! They literally stand 2 feet away from you, watching your every move. I had forgotten they did that and thought they wanted to keep a close eye on me in case I was stealing something (I was looking through my bag for my lip gloss while standing in front of small, 'easily-stealable' accessories)... they follow you around the store. haha I actually walked around this clothes rack twice to see if she'd actually follow (and she DID). It makes me feel uncomfortable and does not make me want to shop! If you speak Korean, though, it would be a bit better because they would be your personal shopper and recommend items related to your style.Even though there's mainly well-known brand-name stores, there are some less-known (though also celebrity-endorsed) stores like this one. This store is sooo cute -- the theme is white and pink, "cooking", food (desserts), and rabbits!

Very cutesy.

There are 2 popular Korean brands called Banc and Colonize, much coveted by Soompiers (people who use the popoular online Korean forum, Soompi). They sell casual sports-wear as in tees, sweatshirts, running shoes, caps, and bags. Quite a few Korean celebrities wear these two brands.
The Colonize store (well, not everything in it was Colonize) was much more narrow and dark. I tried on 2 sweatshirts. Don't remember which brand this is, but it's cute and it reminded me of my mommy.
The one I bought (for Bern.. but I love it)
A few other things I picked up yesterday:
$7CDN for contact solution @ Watsons.. is that cheap?
Missha BB Cream w/ SPF 42 (more about this when I do a cosmetics post)
Anna Sui mirror look-alike. Seller threw in a free comb =)
I bought this a couple days ago at Home Plus -- my $1 calorie mug! To go with the Googims calorie sweatshirt I didn't bring.
Laneige Eye Designer Cream to hydrate my eyes (does not prevent wrinkles). Laneige is a department-store-type Korean brand that seems comparable to Lancome. Came with samples.

All in all, Myeong-Dong has a lot to offer if you're 28 or younger and love crowds! Like Flo said, it's like Boxing Day every day.

Shillayhamnida (excuse me)!!