South Korea 2022: (Revisiting) Hongdae & Myeongdong pt. 2

Day 7

We are officially one week into our trip now, with one week left to go… always feels like you just landed yesterday. Anyway, we took some time today to revisit Hongdae and Myeongdong - really just taking a chill day today.

HONGDAE

We got off the train and when we got out of the station, I’m not sure if they were washing the sidewalks (?) but there was water FLOWING across and onto the street. Good on them if they were washing the sidewalks, I don’t know if they even do that in Toronto? Does that even happen? Where they wash the sidewalks because they get dirty? Or maybe there’s just so much precipitation they assume the dirt will just get washed away by nature…

Anyway we first stopped at another Olive Young. Sometimes we just randomly stop inside one just to take a look at what they have and see if we have anything we really want to pick up. We’ve already done this (more than) a couple times on the trip. They’re literally everywhere - just imagine seeing twice the amount of Shoppers Drug Marts everywhere - that’s how common Olive Young is.

I find even if you buy Korean beauty/skincare products online (Olive Young does have a global website that ships internationally (and yes Canada without duties/customs from my experience purchasing once) but I recommend Jolse) the most popular items in Korea and internationally are different. I find like these “Korean” brands like Laneige & Dr.Jart aren’t really that popular in Korea. Brands like Abib & Round Lab are popular at the moment. Only my mom picked up some things today - remember to carry your passport with you everywhere, for tax free. Olive Young does instant tax free when you spend over $50.

After that quick stop, our first stop of course had to be coffee. We stopped by The Coffee Bean which is a coffee chain in Korea.

I always find it so interesting looking at the merchandise of other coffee shops. We really only have Starbucks merchandise here… Tim Hortons doesn’t really do a lot of merch. [side note: I had been looking for my Been There Series mug from Starbucks but no matter which Starbucks I stopped by, it didn’t exist??? I only saw like Jeju inspired and Seoul inspired cups but they WEREN’T part of that series. I had started collecting those mugs so… and spoiler alert, no I didn’t end up finding the mug before I had to leave… sad.] I’m going to say it but those spiky Starbucks cups we get here in Canada are NOT it… anyway…

I got a refreshing fruit soda and a smoked & sous vide chicken salad, and my sister ordered a hot fruit tea. I’m calling them fruit teas because I cannot for the life of me remember what they were. If I had to guess, I’m guessing berry citrus - that’s the best I can do. My drink was tasty! Super refreshing. And my sister enjoyed her hot tea. The salad was pretty tasty and it was pretty filling too - because of the chicken breast and the egg.

The funny thing is - I didn’t even end up getting coffee (lol). But after we walked around the Hongdae area for a bit. My mom bought a pair of Nike Air Max’s and they were doing a discount and gift for people who had Nike memberships. So they asked me if I wanted to sign-up and I did. They ended up giving two Nike branded cups, a plate, a clip, some chips and a can of water. We ended up bringing the cups and plates home (of course) but we ate the chips and drank the water. Now the NIKE CHIPS AND WATER?? They were THE MOST normal thing ever. It was literally just chips and water (lol). But it was free, so you know what? I’ll take it.

I also went back to that cheap clothing store that was briming with clothes but I kept looking around and you really see why the clothing is cheap. It isn’t the worst quality but you truly are paying for the quality. Plus there wasn’t anything that was outstanding to me and I didn’t feel like I needed to contribute to the overconsumption culture (you do you) I’ll just stick with my Club Monaco at home.

My sister said we should visit the ADER error store they had in Hongdae which was a bigger one and its stand alone store. When we got there, there was like no one there… we thought it was closed. Turns out it just hadn’t opened yet so we just waited for a few minutes and someone came to open the door. They sprayed our hands with sanitizer and they specifically told us that we couldn’t take any photos or videos in there. There wasn’t any special art exhibit so I wasn’t sure why they said that… ADER error is a Korean brand and I would definitely say eclectic but like modern and contemporary. Nothing we liked and we left after a quick walk around.

We then decided to head for lunch. My sister found this Japanese place basically right dab center of Hongdae. It was pretty busy but we were able to get seated right away when we got there. My sister and I both ordered the Tempura set and my mom got the pork katsu set. The shrimp set came with 4 shrimp tempura, rice, cabbage salad, miso soup and some small side dishes. The shrimp was so freshly made - it was nice and crispy and it wasn’t oily at all. In the middle, they gave some dipping options - I think it was wasabi, beside that was I want to say yuzu salt (but honestly, I don’t think I even tasted any citrus but I don’t know what else would make it yellow), and to the top was some mayo based sauce. I love the wasabi kick, so it was my dip of choice. For side dishes, they gave pickled spicy peppers (which were actually spicy), some… I want to say wasabi marinated greens, and then I think that’s pickled radish actually. The soup and salad were great as a palate cleanser too for the shrimp, you know?

My mom said her pork katsu was pretty tasty. I also tried a piece and it was - I can see how the pork would be much more filling than the shrimp for sure. The katsu one came with a katsu sauce and I will say use more than you think or else the pork may be a bit dry. At this place, you actually order off a machine at the table which also had a card reader there - we didn’t know if they took cash? So we just used a card to pay right at the table when we put in our order. Great if you don’t want to interact with anyone (lol). Overall this place was very tasty, I loved my shrimp set. Giving this place… 9/10. Very good.

MYEONGDONG

We walked by Myeongdong again, not really with a plan, more for window shopping. We walked into a few stores here and there. We went into and saw another National Geographic in a department store and I picked up another crewneck and my sister picked up a teddy zip hoodie/jacket. Still nothing that interested my mom.

We went back down to the department store food area. We stopped at a café for a quick rest - my sister ordered a hot herbal fruit tea. I got this iced matcha latte with this creamy & silky foam topping. I’m pretty sure the topping was made using egg white, that’s usually how they get it to be that shiny and fluffy. It might sound strange, which I mean it kind of does but you don’t taste egg - it’s just creamy and when mixed into the drink you don’t even remember.

My sister really wanted the conveyer belt sushi experience, so we stopped by this sushi place that was also down there. We weren’t too hungry, so it was just for a quick bite really. And thankfully we weren’t hungry because this place is quite expensive, with the cheapest plate option being $2? I say that’s expensive because when I’m comparing it to somewhere like Japan where it starts at $1… Overall the place isn’t bad, it was quite tasty and we enjoyed some of the clam sushi offerings but it was just a bit expensive. Giving this place a 6/10.

There was another Tamburins in this department store in the basement level, I went over to see if they had Chamo here and to no ones surprise… they didn’t (lol). I was still determined to get it. I also saw a Le Labo and I wanted to take a look at the city exclusives. Seoul’s is Citron 28, which is a spicy lemony white floral musk fragrance - yeah, I know notes are confusing which is why I wanted to smell it! Honestly, I didn’t even know it was called Citron 28 at the time so I didn’t even know what I was looking for! Plus I didn’t really want to speak to anyone or be bothered, so I just checked from afar and then just left.

Before we went back to our Airbnb we stopped by a bakery and picked up some stuff. You will find that Korea has a lot of bakeries everywhere! Even when I’m downtown Toronto there aren’t as many bakeries as I’ve seen in Asia… we do have lots of coffee shops though. At the top of the photo we have some sort of chestnut pastry cookie, then I want to say this was a slice of apple pie? Though I didn’t pick it out it was my sister and she’s not as big of an apple pie fan as I am so I wouldn’t expect her to pick up apple pie but I can’t remember what it is (lol). PLUS it kind of looks like it right? Then, for the last item as you can see - castella cake!

I think this day we went back to Lotte Mart to pick up some stuff to cook at home again. During a lot of these trips I’m usually picking up some coffees for the next morning. One thing I noticed is that pre packaged lattes are VERY sweet but then when you get lattes at a café they aren’t sweet. They are tasty but quite sweet… so I recommend getting the americanos and maybe mixing them together? What I love about the stores in Korea is that many have 1+1 or a deal of similar nature - who doesn’t like two for the price of one? I wish they would do that here in Canada but honestly, they’d probably charge twice the price for one item and say its 1+1… shady.

It was a pretty non-eventful day for us today but hope you enjoyed the post anyway. Hope you stay tuned for the next one!

-Thomas