Sunday, September 15, 2013

Exploring Seoul

Today when I woke up I immediately told myself that I have to do something today and not stay in my room. I packed my stuff, also my camera, and headed to the Hoegi station. So .. Where should I go? Dongdaemun is quite close and what I have heard, it´s the paradise of fashion and shopping. When I came up from the subway, I couldn´t believe what I saw. Seriously, I love fashion and I love to shop, but this time it was even too much for me.
This was the first thing I saw. An endless street filled with small shops full of shoes in all models and colors. First I got excited (I love shoes) but this trip through this market/street would probably take me 2 hours to go through, so I decided to not even go there. I was actually searching for two shopping malls that I never found. I have to say that Dongdaemun is a really confusing area. I definitely have to visit it again soon!


I really got lost after a while. There was so many markets that was specialized on just one thing. I ended up in the food market and I have never seen this amount of food in my entire life. In the first picture you can see Kimchi and a lot of other spicy dishes. On the second picture... do I even have to explain what it is?

Finally I managed to get out of the chaos and I decided to walk back beside the Cheonggyecheon stream. Ah, how lovely isn´t this? You can only cross the stream by walking on these stones and I was so relieved that for once it was not that crowdy! Many couples, businessmen and families visits this. It is really relaxing and it´s a great place to have a little picnic. 


After the chaos in Dongdaemun I continued to Anguk and Insadong. Insadong is a place that a lot of tourists visits. Here they sell a lot of souvenirs and also a lot of shops that sells clothes that are made  of designers from korean. A typical thing, that is quite famous in Insadong are these tubes. They are fried, filled with ice cream and costs only 3,000krw. That´s only 2 euros! I really felt like buying one but I was so hungry and I wanted to have lunch first, so I will try these ice cream tubes another time.


After Insadong I took a taxi to Myeongdong. This are is really familiar to me now so I decided to have a look around the shops and I ran into Iina and Nhung! What a lovely surprise, finally I got some company! We did some shopping and we continued to Hongdae to visit this shop called Stylenanda. Immediately when I entered the shop I was sold! They were selling all these unique Jeffrey Campbell shoes - and they were -40% off or a lot cheaper than in Europe! To be honest, I wanted to buy them all and I couldn´t decide which ones I should take home with me. I will remember this store and I will definitely be back!
Since I am studying marketing, they have a really nice way of making people want to visit the shop. The design of the shop is unique first of all and also you are able to take free pictures with your friends after shopping. I think this is an brilliant idea and it brings a lot of costumers to the shop.


Last but not least we had to stop somewhere to eat something. We stopped at a little place where this lady were making some typical korean street food. Nhung just ordered the traditional rice cake and Iina is waiting for her fried shrimps.  While waiting for the food, Jere and Jani passed us with Bella and Jane. All of us were tired and decided to go back to Hoegi together.
The subway was full. I was laughing while thinking about the subway in Helsinki. When there is no seats left, people always complain that it´s so crowdy, too much people and so on. In Seoul, you never get to sit down, maybe once in a while but that usually never happens. In the subway, you always have to give your seat to the older and if you don´t they will probably tell you to move your ass! 

Outside my dormitory there is a 7eleven where students usually hang out. Sharone bought us all mini bananas! Extremely cute. After chatting with them for a while, I had to head up to my bed and get some rest. Tomorrow is a new day with new activities! 

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