A ha! Finally the day that we 2 girls were looking forward to! DMZ tour was the perfect distraction for the guys, which allowed us to enjoy the whole day of shopping! mwahahaha
After dating me for a couple of years, Mister knew me well enough (at least about my tendency to go a bit overboard while on shopping spree) that he lent me his cabin luggage to bring on our shopping day! My friends were shocked and surprised but we both utilized it so well! I was thinking we couldn't fill it up and yet, we did!
Ewha Women University (Edae)
A busy day for us started with shopping at Edae. Being located in the university area means clothes here are trendy and in style for the youth and are relatively cheaper. Trust me, clothes on offer here are more fashionable than those found in other shopping zones (which could be tacky sometimes). Except for Dongdaemun, I guess. Clothes in Dongdaemun are chic and stylish but they are on the pricey side. Remember to explore the narrow side alleys of Edae which are littered with pretty boutiques!
Hongdae, Sinchon & Edae are 3 neighboring university towns, bustling with youthful energy of college crowd. Hongdae is known for busking, bars, clubs and nightlife in general while Edae is famous for shopping and beauty treatment at hair saloons and nail spas. Ewha is a university for women afterall ^_~ I might be slightly biased but to me, Sinchon has the best food among these 3 university areas.
Best to shop for:
1) Cute, customized, handmade items
2) Shoes for ladies
3) Accessories
3) Fashionable, feminine clothing at affordable prices
Must-try snacks:
1) Egg muffins (not the ones with egg on top of the bread, try the ones with egg inside the bread)
2) Spicy fried chicken with rice cake & hash brown (Cup Dak)
How to get there: Ewha Women University Station, Line 2, Exit 2 or 3
Hongdae, Sinchon & Edae are 3 neighboring university towns, bustling with youthful energy of college crowd. Hongdae is known for busking, bars, clubs and nightlife in general while Edae is famous for shopping and beauty treatment at hair saloons and nail spas. Ewha is a university for women afterall ^_~ I might be slightly biased but to me, Sinchon has the best food among these 3 university areas.
Best to shop for:
1) Cute, customized, handmade items
2) Shoes for ladies
3) Accessories
3) Fashionable, feminine clothing at affordable prices
Must-try snacks:
1) Egg muffins (not the ones with egg on top of the bread, try the ones with egg inside the bread)
2) Spicy fried chicken with rice cake & hash brown (Cup Dak)
How to get there: Ewha Women University Station, Line 2, Exit 2 or 3
At beautiful Ewha Campus
( I'm being biased but I still think my alma-mater Korea University is still more beautiful :D )
With my shopping buddies
Simple yet yummy lunch with
spicy rice cake, kimbab, rice balls & ramen
Myeong Dong
After morning exercise (i.e., shopping & lugging our purchases along) and lunch, we headed to Myeong Dong where we agreed to meet up with DMZ group to take Hanbok photos. I know, we already took them at Insadong but we had so much fun that we wanted to try again haha Too bad, all slots were fully booked and we couldn't make any reservation in advance (only same day bookings are allowed) so we shopped just a tad at this cosmetic & skincare heaven! Just a tad because that was already our second time hehe but you must go there at least once during your trip since all Korean cosmetic brand has minimum one store in Myeong Dong. Plus, the sales girls there are pretty generous with samples they hand out. Do remember to collect tax refund receipts for any purchase above 30,000 Won. If you are into brand shopping, there is a Lotte department store too. Oh and there is a Tourist Information Center, right in the middle of lively shopping street.
1) Korean cosmetics
2) Korean skincare
3) Clothes from high street fashion retailers like Forever 21, H&M
Must-try snacks:
None because all street-food here are over-priced
How to get there:
1) Myeong-Dong Station, Line 4, Exit 5 or 6 or 7 or 8
2) Euljiro 1-ga Station, Line 2, Exit 5
Seoul Station
To book our group KTX tickets to visit Busan, we had to take a break from shopping to go to Seoul Station. If you are getting a normal one way Seoul-Busan ticket, the price is around 70,000 - 75,000 Won per pax. Since we were also planning to take KTX back from Busan, we decided to get 3-day KR Pass instead for 83,700 Won. That was a huge saving of at least 40% compared to buying 2 one-way tickets. Plus, KR Pass holders can travel for free on all trains managed for KORAIL, regardless of frequency of travel or travel areas. Such a steal!
Since this KR Pass is only offered to foreign travelers, there is a need to check your ID and we all had to go down to Seoul Station. There was no direction on how to book tickets and we wasted a lot of time, waiting at wrong lines. Such a frustrating process. To save you time and effort, let me just share the right procedure.
=> Firstly, you have to go inside the help center office for tourists and foreigners. Its located on level 1, across from the Information desk. They will check your passports to ensure that only foreign travelers who have been in Korea for less than 6 months are purchasing KR Pass. Afterwards, they will print a reservation slip for you.
=> Then, go to the Information desk to exchange it for a pass (a credit card sized pass). They will ask when you want to start using your 3-day pass though.
=> Finally, head over to ticketing counters to reserve train tickets for your travel. Seat numbers will be printed on the train tickets.
On a side note, there is a Lotte Supermarket (next to the station) where many tourists stock up on their Korean snacks before leaving the country.
How to get there: Seoul Station, Line 1 / 4 / AREX, Exit 1
Express Bus Terminal
Among numerous places to shop in Seoul, this place offers clothing, shoes and accessories at the cheapest rate! Well, we can't get the best of both worlds so items here are not as chic as those in Dongdaemun or Edae. You can just visit these places to get inspiration on latest Korean fashion then come to this underground shopping arcade to create your own outfit at way more affordable prices.
By the time we reached here, our luggage was half full and we didn't want to keep carrying it around. So we left it at the lockers inside the station. Lockers are located pretty close to the exit, which leads to shopping arcade. You gotta have 1000 Won notes and 500 Won coins though. For a cabin luggage, we needed to use 3,000 Won locker but we only had 10,000 Won notes so we had quite a hard time looking for somebody who is willing to exchange for smaller notes.
There were hundreds of shops and we literally shopped till we dropped of exhaustion. We had to change trains at Noryangjin Station from Line 9 to Line 1 and we had to walk across overhead bridge to do so T.T Can you imagine what a hard time we had, going home with our overflowing luggage? By the time we reached our subway station, it was drizzling and we were just not up to walking 15 minutes so we just took cab for about 4,000 Won.
How to get there: Express Bus Terminal Station, Line 3 / 7 / 9, Exit 8 or 8-2
Our wallets were much lighter, after spending about 150,000 - 200,000 Won each (today alone). Nonetheless, we were happy girls, with amazing purchases (in our opinion anyway). We even tried them on and showed off to the guys during supper at home hahaha :D Those were the times!
Adios!
xoxo
Miss N
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