Day 50: Shopping!

Alright Holly here's another post... although nothing particularly exciting happened today, haha sorry!

I had to wake up kind of early this morning (before noon... I'm so screwed for my 4 8:30am classes next term) so I could face time Steven to go over the pronunciation of a few basic Japanese words (he lived in Japan for 6 months). He recommended a bunch of good places to visit and reassured me that I would be able to survive even if I had no idea how to read or speak the language, so that made me feel a lot better! Of course I went back to bed after our call and then slept until it was actually a reasonable time to wake up.

I didn't have any plans for today so I decided to go back to the Myeongdong underground shopping centre. I had only briefly walked down one of the 'streets' when I found it a few days ago because I was focused on finding Star Plaza so I wanted to go back to get a better look. I hopped on a subway to Myeongdong and started to explore the underground market.

There were so many k-pop stores! I wandered around and found several album stores and lots of merchandise stalls. It was so hard to not buy too much stuff! When I walked into one of the album stores I was super disappointed to see that the prices for a few items were significantly lower than what I had paid at Music Korea. Note to self: shop around first next time, don't just buy the first thing you see. However, one of the things I bought a few days ago was almost $30 more expensive at that location rather than Music Korea so it really does require some heavy duty price shopping.

I didn't buy any albums but I did pick up a copy of Time Magazine at one of the stores. BTS was on the cover of Time Magazine earlier this year (which is a pretty big deal) so I wanted to have my own copy to add to my BTS collection at home. My lovely roommate Tegan has been running around back in Canada trying to find a copy but it was several weeks old by now and there were no locations that still had it (thank you for looking!). I thought I was going to miss out on it so I was beyond excited when I found a copy at a random store underground. I'm not sure if it is a legitimate copy but it came with a free poster and it's good enough to put on my shelf so I'm not going to be picky.

Myeongdong Street:

My next stop was an album store called Buruttrak.

picture from https://kpopshopclothing.wordpress.com/

One of the blogs I had read to find out about good BTS places to go in Korea had recommended coming here because they sold official signed k-pop albums. I'm not sure what price range I had in mind before I actually saw the albums, but I was definitely not about to spend 150,000 won on one album (over $150) so I walked out empty handed. The store was super tiny but every single shelf was full of albums! There was also a little area at the back that had the signed albums displayed on the wall in plastic bags. I admired the signed albums, took a picture of them, debated buying one, and then quickly escaped the store before I made a bad decision. As amazing as it would be to have a signed album, I don't think my bank account would be too happy with me.

I walked around the street more to see if there were anymore cool k-pop places. I found a merchandise store that had a fun staircase with k-pop groups names on each step so I walked upstairs to check it out. There was such a wide variety of merchandise inside, from customized posters, to pillows, to alarm clocks, and more.

I really am jealous of Korean k-pop fans. They have all this awesome stuff so close to where they live whereas international fans have to pay twice the price and search forever online to find what they want. One of the things I really love about Korea is being able to walk in the street and hear k-pop music coming from the stores and see all the ads on windows that feature k-pop idols. It makes me smile every time!

It was almost 3 pm by this point and I hadn't had lunch so I stopped by a place that had a picture of bibimbap outside of it. I think I mentioned in a previous post but the majority of restaurants have pictures of the main dishes they serve on the wall or window outside. I find it super convenient because I don't have to go in or take time to look at a menu, I can just glance at the window and see what kind of food they serve. Another thing that is cool is that there are lots of stores and not a lot of space so it is very unusual to see a building that has only one store in it. Typically the building is 3 or 4 floors and there are signs on the walls outside advertising what is on each floor. There is a main entrance to a stair case that allows people to access all the other floors in that building. Here is the place that I stopped at for lunch (it was on the second floor):

Here is a really good example of pictures of food outside a restaurant:

Some even have shelving units outside the store with fake food in them so you can see exactly what the dish would look like (I'll try to remember to take a picture next time I see it).

I fly to Japan tomorrow and still haven't done the majority of my planning so I finished exploring Myeongdong and went back to the apartment to do some cramming. I set myself up on my bed with a few oranges, my laptop, and my special red notebook. I have been using the notebook to write down the activities I want to do on each day when I go somewhere outside of Seoul. I used it when I went to Jeju and it was super helpful! I would also write the stuff on my phone but I like being able to cross out each place on my list as I visit it.

Many computer tabs and hours of research later, I finally had my Japan itinerary all laid out. By this point it was almost 10 pm and I was exhausted (I feel so accomplished after planning but also way too tired haha). I said goodbye to Martin and Kate and gave them a Canada keychain. They have been the best hosts I've met on my trip so far and it has been absolutely amazing to stay with them. Both of them took me to cool places, introduced me to amazing food, and provided me with some great memories of night time chats over tea. They were also kind enough to let me leave my suitcase and albums at their house so I only had to take a carry on with me to Japan! I'm hoping I will get to see them a few more times before I go back to Canada.

I'm super excited but also really freaked out to go to Japan. I've become very comfortable in Korea and I love living here! I have figured out the transportation system and I am slowly learning more of the language. I can read Hangul (Korean) much faster now and even if I don't understand what it means I can at least type it in to google translate because I can read and recognize the characters. I know barely any Japanese (hi, thank you, and no don't really count) and I definitely can't read it, plus their transportation system looks chaotic. In some ways it is similar to when I first came to Korea because I really didn't know what to expect but at least when I came here I knew more of the language and how to read it. I feel completely unprepared going to Japan... fingers crossed it goes well!

This is the train system in Osaka (not all of Kansai just an area of Osaka):

The closest train station to the hostel I am staying at is called Dobutsuen-mae (the black dot).

This is the area of Japan I'm going to for reference in the next few posts. This area of Japan is called Kansai. I am flying into Kansai airport and staying in Osaka. I plan to visit Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe while I am there.

Ooh and because I don't think I've posted a map of Seoul's subway system here you go (the blue squiggly line through the middle is the Han River):

I circled two stations: I am staying near Hangangjin station and I went to Myeongdong today. It may look close together on the map but it can take more than an hour to get from the middle of Seoul to places on the outskirts of it. It took me 25 minutes to go from Hangangjin station to Myengdong station.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(November 14)