Day 18: 14 September, Saturday

Day 2 in Seoul!

Woke up early to meet our buddies at Myungdong for shopping! The girls went ahead first because the guys were waiting for Kim oppa (Adrial's buddy).

Otw to ride the subway! 

Myungdong Station (Line 4)

Cute sheep cupcakes

Cupcakes

Had this for breakfast! You have to smash it into pieces!

Like this! And eat it. Hehe.

Streets of Myungdong

Streets of Myungdong

Us at Myungdong

Myungdong is a shopping paradise!! But things are slightly expensive so I didn't buy much. So we headed for Gangnam afterwards!

Some random shots taken in the shops.

Beast's signature~

Totoro~

Polaroids

The whole wall of polaroids 

And guess who we saw?? :P

Nickhun!

G-Dragon

G-Dragon

G-Dragon & Yvonne

G-Dragon & I

EXO

Headed for Gangnam!



Gangnam Station (Line 2)

Roadside stalls

My buddies weren't familiar with Gangnam so we couldn't find a place for lunch. The restaurants there like super expensive ($20 for a bowl of udon?) so we didn't want to waste that money. We found one cheap Japanese restaurant in a shopping mall that looks damn good but our buddies don't want so they kept finding places to eat. Ended up eating in a fine dining Japanese restaurant (what I consider it) and Tonkatsu cost $15,000. But it was good. Tonkatsu with Cheese. Imagine that.

Tonkatsu Lunch

And then we went back for shopping for an hour (we don't have much time). We got Gongcha!!! But I still miss Koi.



Gongcha

The instructions

Milk Tea w/ pearl (tapioca)

And probably the worst thing that could happen in Korea happened. Just when we were about to leave the place I realized I misplaced my wallet! I was super panicky but obviously there was no way to find it. I was so confused so I just sat there on the floor thinking how dumb was I to lose my wallet, where my friends were busy helping me call the police, call the embassy, searching my bag and more. Super thankful for them. If not for them I'd have felt so lost.

Ironically, the korean buddies weren't of much help. In fact, I would say they were unwilling to help. That shocked me utterly.

Thanks Yvonne for lending me your phone to call my dad (I'm sorry your bill's gonna cost a bomb) and helping me call the embassy; thanks Cheryl for calling the police for me; thanks Meihwa & Yixin for your moral support and your money for my transport card. Really really appreciate all their help.

So... For those concerned I've settled all my stuff, so not to worry. Didn't lose any money. :D

Samgyupsal for dinner with Yixin and we ate four portions of meat. Definitely the super yummy kind.

Beef!

Pork!

Dinner!

Grilling!

Look at the oil...

Met the others at the dorm after dinner and we went to visit Cube cafe and entertainment companies! Let pictures do the saying! If you/re a kpop fan you'll understand everything. :D

Express Bus Terminal Station (Line 3; transfer)

Cheongdamn Station (Line 7; ent. companies)

Random photo while crossing the road.

This photo is crucially essential~

Entertainment Companies!!!

Cube Cafe & Studio!

What's inside Cube Cafe?? :P



Dongdaemun to shop! Like officially shop. Hehe.

Train is arriving~

"wangsimni" xD

Taiquan was tired on the train...

Saw this while shopping. I love heels but who wears these man.

Let me share the shopping experience.

The locals say that the prices there can be discounted by half if you ask for it, so discounts are a must. The clothes range from KRW$5,000-KRW$85,000, and most of them are just t-shirt material.

Apparently guys get discount easier with male shop owners. We thought girls would be easier but no. Adrial cut $10,000 from a pair of $35,000 shoes in less than a minute! He just said like "hey bro come on man give me the discount" and the guy was like "okay okay $25,000". Mindblown.

So, the girls' experiences are not very pleasant though. The first shop we went to had clothes selling $27,000 for one. She said there was a sale so its $20,000. We told her its a little expensive, and asked her how about $10,000? She said, "아 그냥 나가죠 언니" which meant something like "then just fuck off" (it really is that tone, not just asking us to go away). And she just snatched the clothes back from our hands. So we left.

Went into another shop with a male shop owner and tried to haggle the price with him. I told him we were students, foreign students, we don't have money, we really like the clothes etc. Somehow it feels like IBN class. And whatever Professor Philip Rose said was right. They will tell you a lot of information just to convince you to buy their stuff. And they will set a high price & give you discount so it seems like they gave up a lot but in actual fact they may be earning a 200% profit.

We didn't manage to talk through the deal of course, because apparently there are prices for koreans and prices for foreigners so they will never cut the price if they know you are foreigners. Then this group of Taiwanese girls came into the shop and asked for discounts. The moment the owner refused their offer price, the whole group of them grabbed the owner and start saying, "아 오빠 왜 왜 오빠 제발 오빠~~~" oh my god super disgusting. But guess what? They made the deal. Eew.

There were nice shop owners though. This ahjuma was so nice so we negotiated a little. By telling her we will go back. Savings: $13,000.

The next shop that involved me was this young lady owner. She is nice, really nice. So we negotiated. For 15 minutes. The moment the deal got through, I just turned around and "phew" cause it was so mentally draining haha. This was roughly the situation.

Owner: A ($55) + B ($77) = $130 (up $132)
Yvonne: A + B = $100?
Owner: 아 안돼요 언니... $120?
Yvonne: $110?
Owner: 아 언니 진짜 안돼...

Owner: A ($55) + B ($77) + C ($35) = $160? (up $167)
Yvonne: $110!
Owner: 왜 이 번호 이렇게 좋아 아 진짜...
Yvonne: B + C = $80 (up $112)
Owner: $100?
Yvonne: $85??
Owner: 아... 돼요 너만 줄게!

The last shop where Taiquan was buying a belt he was bargaining from $25 to $15 but the ahjuma only gave $20. So Taiquan said $18 but the ahjuma said no. Ahjuma kept saying Taiquan handsome so I intercepted and told her in korean that Taiquan is good looking so it should be $18. But ahjuma is pretty also so shouldn't it be $17? She gave in in the end and told Taiquan I would be a good girlfriend to bring for shopping but apparently only the girls understood so we just laughed. xD

Haha that was about it. It was my most tiring shopping experience ever. Bought myself just one shirt and accessories. Shopping is the only place of excessive use of Korean. Korean overload. Ahhhhhh.

We decided to leave Dongdaemun at about 2.30am and we had to take taxi back because the subway service had already ended.

There were a row of taxis queuing up outside the mall and I tried my best to sound like a korean. There were a few drivers that alighted from their taxi and offered us a ride. When I asked how much, he told me $30. Fyi, the distance from the mall and our guesthouse is only 2 subway stops away. So we just walked away.

We walked further and flagged another taxi and asked how much. He said $10. So we thought it sounded reasonable so I let four of them leave first. Then we flagged another one who said he'll on the meter. Guess how much was the ride? $2.80. The meter fare didn't even jump! So we kinda got cheated. Haha.

Reached our guesthouse at approximately 3.15am and all settled down to unpack our shopping and pack our bags for departure tomorrow and take our showers. At 4am we crept down to the living room quietly to take a group photo with polaroids. We took 9! One for each of us + the owner!

Giving this to the owner!

Oh and on the way back Cheryl bought fries from Popeyes and I must say its the best so far in Korea!

That was all about my Day 2 in Seoul and we all slept about 5am haha.