Seoul 2014: Day 6 Part I (Myeongdong)

26 MAY: Myeongdong

                    N Seoul Tower

Finally! Korea's famous shopping paradise, Myeongdong (명동 쇼핑가)! 

To get there: Myeongdong Station Line 4 - Exits 5, 6, 7 & 8.

When we first exited out from the station, we met the friendly people in red (that I mentioned in this post) Since we had to settle breakfast, we asked for some recommendation and got a free map* of Myeongdong from them as well. We decided on Myeongdong Gyoza (명동교자).

*We navigated around Myeongdong with a lot of help from the free map as well as asking other people in red. 

The prices at Myeongdong or rather the whole menu is displayed at the front of the store. You can zoom in to view them. 

All of the dishes are priced at 8000 KRW. It does seem expensive, but I feel that it was worth for the quality of the food you get. 

We ordered a tray of mandu (dumplings) and a bowl of kalguksu (noodle) to share for a light breakfast. It's not bad for breakfast and we were able to avoid the lunch crowd. 

After breakfast, it's shopping time! Since it was our 6th day, we were running low on KRW. There are money exchange shops around Myeongdong that you can easily find as you walk around. Their rates are not bad and actually, higher than what we got in Singapore. 

Myeongdong Underground Shopping Centre

If shopping above ground was not enough for you, head underground! And this is where you can buy all the Kpop albums!!! The underground shopping area is similar to what you will get at the one at Dongdaemun. However, I believe that it is generally cheaper over here. 

The main priority for most tourists at Myeongdong was cosmetics and skin care besides shopping for clothes. You can check out my other more detailed post on some of my shopping in Seoul. 

Warning: if you are going to Myeongdong to buy a lot of skincare or cosmetic products, buy them last. I bought them quite early and had to lug the HUGE and many bags all around. In the end, we decided to head back to the banana backpackers to drop our shopping loot before heading back to continue shopping again. I didn't take a picture of what we had to carry, especially me because of what I bought from Laneige, but trust me, it was insanely heavy and burdensome. 

The cosmetic/skin care shops in Seoul, especially in Myeongdong is famous for giving samples even if you're just entering the shop and not buying anything. This is true to some extent but don't expect all the shops to give you samples. Also, it's quite awkward to just get the samples and leave. They usually place the samples in those small baskets and pass them to you. So yeah, imagine retrieving the samples and giving them an empty basket back. Awkward. 

However, I was really happy to get two mask samples that had Super Junior on them cause I'm a HUGE fan of them and they weren't selling those masks anymore. 

International and korean brands like Spao (Spao is not an expensive brand but Super Junior are their models and I've always wanted to visit their store) were all around Myeongdong. At the same time, there were shops that were similar to those in Ehwa and Hongdae. It's really the shopping haven. 

We decided to take a break from lugging the shopping bags and visited O'sulloc Tea House. I actually bought green tea leaves from them earlier on at Insadong but we visited them this time round to try out their cafe. 

O'sulloc Tea House

I can't remember the prices but you HAVE to try the green tea drink with the ice cream on top. Something like a root beer float but with green tea drink and ice cream instead. I usually don't fancy green tea products besides the tea itself. But this was amazing. 

The green tea roll cake was soft, moist and absolutely gorgeous. I expected the tiramisu to taste better than the roll cake but the roll cake took me by surprise. The tiramisu was nice too but the roll cake was even better. If you don't want to try both, get the roll cake.