My Seoul Trip, part I

Like I said earlier, this fan blog is going to turn into my personal travel log. I hope you guys don’t mind. haha

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning here in Seoul, and I’m again wide awake, looking for things to do. So I decided to be productive and start blogging about the trip while the memories are still fresh in my mind. 🙂

This was my first full day in Seoul and it was quite an experience, to say the least.

Because this is my very first visit to Korea and I haven’t made much progress in my Korean lessons, I’ve been quite apprehensive about the trip even though I’m totally excited about the concert. Things at work got crazily busy during the week leading up to this trip, I didn’t really get a chance to research and plan out the itineraries. What I did at the last minute was printing out some suggested itineraries and I tried to read them on the flight here. LOL With that little preparation, I kind of knew already that I was in for a bumpy ride.

My hotel is technically located in the Myeongdong area, but judging by the small map I printed out, it seemed pretty far away from the main attractions (i.e. the shops). But that was where I went wrong, and I later realized that I had no skills in reading Korean maps or following directions. Actually, all the directions I had were in relation to the Myeongdong subway station, but my hotel is next to the Euljiro 1 ga station (on the opposite side of Myeongdong), so that made things a little more difficult. What I also realized (belatedly) was that everything was smaller in scale than what I had imagined. Walking down the streets in Myeongdong, it was like, ‘if you blink, you’ll miss it.’ 😆

So even though I decided to make things easy on myself and just explore Myeongdong for my first day, it was not as easy as I had hoped. I first went looking for the tourist info center, hoping to get some maps and guides, but of course I didn’t find it. Then I went looking for some recommended restaurants that opened early enough so I could get a late breakfast. Again, no luck. I pretty much covered the entire Myeongdong area, from west to east, and from north to south, while looking. And I realized that Myeongdong is actually not that big of an area. But of course, when you stop by all the shops one by one, it’s a totally different story. 😆 Anyway, I had to retrace some steps and read the signs very carefully, and I finally found my breakfast spot. But it was more like brunch time already. So I ordered tons of food and totally stuffed myself. haha It was very delicious, by the way. 😀

After that, I set out to do some shopping. It’s hard to believe, but there are like 4 or 5 The Saem stores in that one area. But I wanted to go to the Shop #1, thinking that it would probably be bigger and have more SeungGi goodies. It took me quite a while to find it. And I did see two other stores on my way, and they both had tons of SeungGi posters and life-size cutouts all over the place (one of the stores was pretty crowded outside so no pictures).

Then I also saw the FUBU store. So I went in and started taking pictures. But right after I took my first one, this sales girl came up to me and said NO! Gosh, what’s wrong with taking pictures of posters?! But she was pretty adamant, and she followed me everywhere I went in the store to make sure I didn’t take more pictures. That was totally annoying. I was tempted to buy the jacket SeungGi wore in the picture, but when I wanted to try it on, the sales girl had this look on her face like doubting if I would be able to afford it. One thing I cannot stand is salespeople with bad attitude. So I walked out of the store without buying anything. SeungGi ya, sorry I couldn’t be more supportive of FUBU.

Fortunately, right after walking out of FUBU, I found The Saem Shop #1. The sales girls there were a lot more friendly. One of them started saying something in Japanese, and when I gave her a blank look, another girl came up and started speaking Mandarin. Now that I could understand. 😀 (It’s just my experience, but it seems that English doesn’t really get you very far here. 😦 ) Anyway, it was such a pleasant change from my FUBU store experience. The first thing first. I asked her if there were any SeungGi posters left, and she laughed and said yes. Needless to say, I spent a LOT of money there, and they gave me a lot of freebies, which I didn’t really care for. I just made sure that they gave me my SeungGi poster! haha Before I left, the sales girl told me that SeungGi would be having his fan signing there on December 1st. Too bad I won’t be able to attend. 😦

I also saw a bunch of KB banks, but didn’t see any SeungGi pictures posted anywhere. I still showed my support and exchanged some money there. Aren’t I a good fan? haha

Finally, I stopped by a bookstore. I’m still missing the 3rd repackage album for my collection, but I didn’t find it there. They didn’t even have the 4th repackage album. Strange. I also wanted to get the Ceci magazine, but unfortunately, they were still selling the November issue.  But I did not leave the store empty-handed. I didn’t find the MGIG novels, but luckily I did find the comics. 🙂

Just an interesting side note, even though it’s unrelated to SeungGi. I was walking around in Myeongdong and saw a crowd gathered around a small stage. Being curious, I joined the crowd. I’m not sure what kind of event it was, but the person hosting it looked familiar. It was Kim Jae Dong. He was interviewing a couple of young girls on stage. I didn’t understand much what they were saying except that he asked them who was their favorite celebrity. And one of them said, “oppa.” haha So there you have it. My first celebrity sighting in Korea. 🙂