I traveled into Seoul yesterday just for something to do. I've only lived in Korea for one month exactly, but I'm not having a great time honestly and don't plan on staying for long. In 2020 I lived in Japan, and although things were difficult because of a certain pandemic and all of the uncertainty that came with that, I mostly really enjoyed it. I had planned to do something else after but it fell through, and I wanted to go back to Japan but unfortunately the borders were still closed so I decided to come to Korea instead even though I'd never been here before. And really that was a mistake. It shares just enough similarities with Japan to make me upset that I'm not there instead, but it's different enough to give me culture shock. And there's just not enough positives here to make me want to emotionally work through it, I'd rather just bounce. As you travel you realize that some places are just not meant for you, and that's okay.
Seoul may not be as fun as Tokyo, but it still gives me something to do and I really wanted to get a pair of Doc Marten mary janes which are cheaper in Korea than I've ever seen anywhere else (which is absolutely crazy to me considering I used to live in the UK where DMs are from yet are more expensive there!) So I traveled to Myeong-dong and had a 'treat yourself' kind of day.
One of my favorite stores in Seoul is Kyobo Bookstore in Gwanghwamun, so that's where I started. This store has both of my loves combined - stationary and books. It has a really good selection of foreign books too; there's a large display of Japanese magazines and mooks, and a respectable collection of English language novels that aren't too expensive.
I got a bit emotional seeing one of my favorite books on display. I really wanted to buy it, but I had to stop myself as I don't want to fill up my suitcases unnecessarily. They also had the sequel which was wild to me as I couldn't even find that in a bookstore back home.
There's also a stationary store at the back called Hot Tracks where you can buy a lot of fun stickers and other Japanese imported goods. I bought a Pompompurin phone case which I've had my eye on for a while, he's my favorite of the Sanrio crew but I unexpectedly really like how his yellow compliments my green iPhone. They have so many awesome phone cases here, but as you could probably guess they're mostly for Samsung which kind of sucks to be me. There's an Alice in Wonderland case where the back opens into a mirror compact and I would give anything.
I got one of these Pokemon blind boxes hoping for Oshawott who is my favorite and never featured in anything, but obviously I got the ugliest Pokemon and I'm still mad about it.
Afterwards I walked to Myeong-dong, and stopped on the way to get an iced drink from Baskin Robbins because I guess I wasn't cold enough in -10°c. I've literally never set foot in a Baskin Robbins before but they have such cute things here that I was curious. I got a Purin Peach Blast which is supposed to be Jigglypuff themed but came in a boring plain cup (I'm not that into Pokemon, I just like anything cute) The best thing about Korea is how much peach flavor stuff there is, it's my favorite and so hard to get anywhere else. This was literally just a peach iced drink with cubes of peach jello inside it. It was nice, but it was also snowing and I've never been so cold in my entire life.
Myeong-dong lit up for the holidays.
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