Seoul lovin' Day 6

Day 6 was probably my favorite out of all days.

And I thought going to SM Townland for the first time was magical..

It all started two days ago, the time we went apeshit at SM Townland on Monday.

It was our first time at a place we've been wanting to go since we first dived into the horribly addictive World of K-Pop, who wouldn't cry their eyeballs out at the sight Taemin's signature on the wall, right?

It might have been the excitement, but I had not noticed this huge banner right beside the cashier at the gift shop.

We've already gone a couple rounds in the gift shop while we were there, then we got hungry.

So, we had dinner at this restaurant located right below SMT. During dinner, I had taken out everything I bought earlier from the gift shop, and I just felt like I didn't get enough.

So we went back.. to the gift shop.. for the 5th time that day.

2 words: NO RAGRETS.

That one last trip to the gift shop driven by my amazing instincts made our trip to Seoul the most memorable step out of the country.. ever.

Nadia waited outside the shop as I ran in to buy a file. As I was paying, I noticed this poster beside the cashier. It was a poster/banner of Shinee's comeback with Korean written on it, and a date.

At first, I brushed the idea off. Like, pfsch ya right they won't be here.

I thought it was just promotional banner for their album, but the date didn't look right.

On the poster, it was written "05.08.15", but their album was going to be released that Monday night, which was the 3rd of August. So what was the 5th? Did SM get the dates wrong?

I asked the cashier, who knew close to no English at all, "..Er, igo mwoya?",

to which he replied "Shinee! Pen-sain!" 

Boy, what.

It was probably the shock, but it took me about a minute to realise he was saying fan sign.

I, of course, got overly excited. So, naturally, I left without any further question.

Until I realised I forgot to ask him how to get in the fan sign event.

Wednesday came! The day has finally arrived, people!

Initially, we allocated this day to explore the other parts of Gangnam besides Apgujeong Rodeo, which we covered when we visited the music label company buildings in Day 4.

That was exactly what we did the first half of the day.

We decided to skip all the extra miles of getting lost and hopped into the Gangnam Tour Bus!

.. We were the only ones on it.

The tour guide was an old man who spoke English (Thank you, God!) and layan-ed all of our typical touristy questions. He was so nice, God bless him!

It was very fascinating to learn so much historical background behind that small district.

Since Gangnam was for the rich and famous, they had a lot more of these skyscraper office buildings compared to other parts of Seoul. Having lunch during lunchtime here would be a nightmare.

Yup, CPK in Seoul. My favorite pizza place in the World.. almost 5,000km away.

After hopping off the bus, the tour guide ahjussi so kindly directed us to Sinsa-dong & Garosu-gil.

It was only a short 10 minute walk from the Gangnam Tourist Centre, but the heat made it feel like hours of walking with 10 kilos on our backs.

But my God, was it worth it.

Sinsa-dong was cooler (in style and literally in temperature) than most places in Seoul because of the entire stretch of the street were filled with trees.

It had tons of cool, hip cafes everywhere, with model-looking Koreans walking (read: strutting) up and down the street. Idols are usually seen around here, too.

Oh wow, this 3CE flagship store in Garosu-gil was something else.

It was 2 stories tall, with a cinema (?) that we totally forgot to explore. There was also a stairs down to the basement, which was also filled with 3CE goodies.

The first floor was filled with people, so we couldn't really take pictures because of their strict no-photo policy.

Not much difference in terms of product compared to the Stylenanda shop in Hongdae, but definitely bigger and a lot more stock of products. So if you find something you like in the Hongdae store that is sold out, there's most probably one here in this store.

Since the 1st floor was crowded, Nadia and I decided to go down to the basement. To our surprise, it was empty! And much, much nicer. Not sure if anyone was even aware of a basement.

Took the opportunity to snap some pictures of the store downstairs.

After several purchases of totally unnecessary lipsticks, we continued down the street and spotted this beautiful vintage store called 9owls.

Once you enter the entrance, there's quite a steep staircase down to the actual store.

The first thing you see when you enter would be the huge wall of countless of celebrity autographs, from Irene, to the girls of Red Velvet, to Shinee members. Seems like everyone in the business has been here.

That being said, the things here aren't really cheap. Absolutely nothing compared to Edae / Hongdae.

They had tons of gorgeous vintage Chanels, used and brand new. Even vintage jewelery, everything from Cartier to Chanel to even Versace.

The price wasn't cheap, but it was definitely a million times cheaper than the prices of Chanels in the market now. Especially it being vintage and all.

There was a bag I wanted, I loved it because it screamed "Chanel" but didn't look anything like the classic. It was all black with slightly tarnished gold hardware.

If my memory serves me right, I think it was priced at about almost a million won = RM2,800.

If I do get a part time job next summer and come back to Seoul after that, I might actually get myself a belated 20th birthday gift..

 Next thing we knew, it was already 6.30pm!

So we rushed to the nearest subway station and stopped at Samseong Station.

And we're back here.. for Shinee!!

You think with her serious expression, she'd be on her phone solving some masalah dunia, right..

Still on the phone, must be something serious.

Nope. Watching the live streaming of the fan sign happening 50 meters from where we were.

So close.. Yet, so far..

The calm before the storm.

After waiting for what seemed like a decade (it was 20 minutes), security guards started coming out and looking all panic-y seeing all these fangirls with nothing but determination in our eyes.

They had to make a couple of rounds telling us to not touch or shout at the boys.

PFSCH, yeah.. that's going to happen..

I screamed.

And then I almost got trampled over a million girls with much more determination than I had.

Hey, don't blame me okay. I bet they didn't go around the entire Gangnam that day!

After all that, we decided to calm our lil weak hearts with a good dinner.

We picked that restaurant downstairs again. With shaky hands and smiles as big as Texas, I ended my 6th day in Seoul with a good, hearty salad.
During dinner, we couldn't contain our excitement a slight bit. So much for staying cool.
We got it all on video, too! It's on my Instagram, just a few scrolls down.
Please excuse my nervous shriek.

'Til then!

xoxo

Tania