Today I spent the day with someone I've never met before -- Tiffany from Sweden. She's studying Korean at a small university semi-close to KU. We had a great time shopping around Myeong-dong, eating noodles, and visiting the Kyobo bookstore!
Lunch - some sort of noodle soup with fish cake and mandoo (dumplings).
Found a great street in Myeong-dong that sold Japanese fashion. Every second shop sold practically the same things.. mini floral prints, romantic blouses, long-white boyfriend-style button-up blouses, neutral and pastel colours, oversized knit-wear, chunky heels, blazers, light scarves, flirty skirts and cropped leather jackets. I found out that you are allowed to try on clothes in the pricier stores.
Then we found this store called TODACOSA (Total Cosmetics) which is very similar to Sephora in that they carry cosmetics, skin care, makeup, fragrance & perfume, hair, and beauty products from different brands. I ended up getting nail polish and a single eyeshadow from this Italian brand I've never heard of before called Nouba (the packaging and shades are a lot like NARS).
Tiffany's juicy hand at the nail bar!
Then as a snack, I tried street food for the first time. A fish cake type thing deep fried with a leaf around it.
Myeong-dong was teeming with Japanese tourists! The SAs were extremely friendly and helpful.
Then we took the subway to the centre of Seoul to visit the Kyobo bookstore. I was expecting a multi-storey building like Taipei's Eslite Bookstore, but this was just an extremely massive basement bookstore that sold foreign and Korean books, electronics, jewelry, gifts, music and DVDs, magazines, and food. We both ended up picking up Super Junior's 3rd (and latest) album, Sorry Sorry. I'm usually not a fan of Super Junior (a Korean boyband comprised of 13 members under SM Entertainment), but I loved their new concept and pictures.
You could enter your receipt into a draw to win a ticket to attend a fan signing (100-150 people are chosen) -- more incentive to buy from their store.
SM Entertainment likes to suck money from die-hard fans by packaging the same CD in different covers and including different photobooks. I chose this one:
My favourite SuJu member, HanKyung (the only Chinese member). He's a great dancer.
The poster that came with it:
Found a Daiso (Japanese $2 shop).
Dinner @ a dumpling "big bun" place - only had 4 items on the menu. The servers dressed up in semi-formal traditional clothes.
It was 10PM by the time we started heading home. I have never seen SUCH a crowded subway station!
It was absolutely FREEZING and sooo windy at night! My hood wouldn't even stay on! Because the dorm is about a 10 minute walk from the subway station and because I felt a bit sick, I tried to catch a taxi from Dongmyo station to Anam.. however, all the taxis were full as most people got on at the station before (Dongdaemun). So I walked all the way to Dongdaemun and luckily caught an unlit taxi. He seemed huffy and kept sighing the whole way there as if it was such a burden to drive me. From miscommunication, he took a wrong turn so I tried my hardest to tell him where to turn to get back on track. He started lightening up and chuckling to himself. He asked me where I was going (the dorm is on the top of a hill and is sort of hidden/difficult to access by vehicle) so I tried to string together some Korean to the best of my abilities. While trying to explain "dorm", I said "Korea dae hakseng jibae" lol which literally translates to "Korea University student house". That really made him crack up.. it was amusing for me esp. since I thought he was Mr. Cranky. 
Tomorrow is a study day.
Lunch - some sort of noodle soup with fish cake and mandoo (dumplings).
Found a great street in Myeong-dong that sold Japanese fashion. Every second shop sold practically the same things.. mini floral prints, romantic blouses, long-white boyfriend-style button-up blouses, neutral and pastel colours, oversized knit-wear, chunky heels, blazers, light scarves, flirty skirts and cropped leather jackets. I found out that you are allowed to try on clothes in the pricier stores.
Then we found this store called TODACOSA (Total Cosmetics) which is very similar to Sephora in that they carry cosmetics, skin care, makeup, fragrance & perfume, hair, and beauty products from different brands. I ended up getting nail polish and a single eyeshadow from this Italian brand I've never heard of before called Nouba (the packaging and shades are a lot like NARS).
Tiffany's juicy hand at the nail bar!
Then as a snack, I tried street food for the first time. A fish cake type thing deep fried with a leaf around it.
Myeong-dong was teeming with Japanese tourists! The SAs were extremely friendly and helpful.
Then we took the subway to the centre of Seoul to visit the Kyobo bookstore. I was expecting a multi-storey building like Taipei's Eslite Bookstore, but this was just an extremely massive basement bookstore that sold foreign and Korean books, electronics, jewelry, gifts, music and DVDs, magazines, and food. We both ended up picking up Super Junior's 3rd (and latest) album, Sorry Sorry. I'm usually not a fan of Super Junior (a Korean boyband comprised of 13 members under SM Entertainment), but I loved their new concept and pictures.
You could enter your receipt into a draw to win a ticket to attend a fan signing (100-150 people are chosen) -- more incentive to buy from their store.SM Entertainment likes to suck money from die-hard fans by packaging the same CD in different covers and including different photobooks. I chose this one:
My favourite SuJu member, HanKyung (the only Chinese member). He's a great dancer.
The poster that came with it:
Found a Daiso (Japanese $2 shop).
Dinner @ a dumpling "big bun" place - only had 4 items on the menu. The servers dressed up in semi-formal traditional clothes.
It was 10PM by the time we started heading home. I have never seen SUCH a crowded subway station!
It was absolutely FREEZING and sooo windy at night! My hood wouldn't even stay on! Because the dorm is about a 10 minute walk from the subway station and because I felt a bit sick, I tried to catch a taxi from Dongmyo station to Anam.. however, all the taxis were full as most people got on at the station before (Dongdaemun). So I walked all the way to Dongdaemun and luckily caught an unlit taxi. He seemed huffy and kept sighing the whole way there as if it was such a burden to drive me. From miscommunication, he took a wrong turn so I tried my hardest to tell him where to turn to get back on track. He started lightening up and chuckling to himself. He asked me where I was going (the dorm is on the top of a hill and is sort of hidden/difficult to access by vehicle) so I tried to string together some Korean to the best of my abilities. While trying to explain "dorm", I said "Korea dae hakseng jibae" lol which literally translates to "Korea University student house". That really made him crack up.. it was amusing for me esp. since I thought he was Mr. Cranky. 
Tomorrow is a study day.
i would accept student house as dorm! psh =p
ReplyDeletewah so much shopping.. hmm intereting everything seems to sell the same clothes. i guess in a way that's like here too, if you didnt know the shops that well you'd think a lot of them sold the same things. but also in asia there's a huge abundance of stores so that makes things a bit difficult to sell diff things EACH time..
10 pm on a sat or fri night? if it's fri - does that mean most people get off work at 10pm?! yikes. if it's sat.....is that also a work day or is that like...our sat night, ppl going out. those ppl dont look like they're going out for a night on the town..
I posted about suju's comeback, I really like their new concept and song too!
ReplyDeletei totally agree with nad, i would've been excited that you tried!! :)
ReplyDeleteNad:
ReplyDeletehaha yea it was 10pm on fri night -- a lot of business people go out drinking after work in groups so there were a lot of "happy" people with red faces in business suits on the subway... hahaha
hey where is that bookstore where you bought Super Juniors album?
ReplyDeleteKoreanWannabeexD: I suggest, if and when you spend some time in Apgujeong, that you take a taxi to go to Kangnam and ask the driver to take you to Kyobo bookstore there - it's huge and underground, you can't miss it.
ReplyDeleteawesome! u lived in Korea? ^^
ReplyDeletebtw, u bought CDs at some bookstore? not a specified CD/DVD store?
last time i went to Myeongdeong i bought some CDs at Music Korea..have u seen that shop,it's in the same building with Nature Republic
Hi Lisa,
ReplyDeleteYep - Kyobo a lot of the latest CDs! I've never been inside Music Korea or heard of it! Maybe it's new. Did you mean the new location for Nature Republic in MyeongDong? Wasn't at the old location next to the subway when I was there!