"Cheap Steals & LIT Flowers" | Dongdaemun

Andy, Gabriel, and I headed to Dongdaemun to explore.

Today was the day where all my Hawai'i friends in Seoul meetup. Actually, Andy and Gabriel did not know each other but have so many mutual friends. We met at Dongdaemun Station Exit 1 for Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP). We all finally met and explored in DDP; it had very unique aspects in the building with a flat ramp swirling up to all the floors. We quickly finished touring the plaza because it was mainly art museums; we just walked up the ramp and exited the plaza.

Afterward, we went walking around the area, seeing the Cheonggyecheon Stream and the Jongmyo Shrine. We headed into the Migliore building to shop. The entire building was full of markets/shops. The first, second, and third floors were full of clothes shops with brands like Supreme, Off-White, and Stussy; it is the perfect location to use your haggling skills to lower the prices. The store owners all know Chinese, which is a great thing for Andy since he can haggle hard in his native language. He was able to haggle two Off-White short-sleeved hoodies from around 38,000 ₩ each to 25,000 ₩ each for both of us. There were all types of shops ranging from clothing to jewelry to souvenirs.

My goal for today's trip was to find cheap K-pop merchandise since I was notified by another Yonsei student about it. On the fourth floor in the Migliore building right next to the escalator, there is a K-pop merchandise store located next to a souvenir and sock store. This was the best location I found to buy these types of items: they sold folders for 1,000 ₩ which is a steal since elsewhere is usually 3,000 ₩. They had all the current groups: Blackpink, Exo, BTS, Twice, Wanna One, etc. and all the past groups as well: 2NE1, SISTAR, and more! I literally bought ten folders and a 2019 Red Velvet calendar, totaling to 15,000 ₩.

We tried to find the nighttime food market there but had no luck; we found a market of some type but the vendors were all closed. It might have been because it was a Sunday night, so be sure to head there on another day. Subsequently, we walked around and found a restaurant that sold beef tongue as well as soju and beer, aka 쏘멕 (somek).

Finally, we ended the day by heading back to DDP to see the lit LED flower park. It was actually a temporary attraction from a drama but has been settled as a permanent exhibition. We did a mini photo shoot with the flowers and finally headed back, parting ways at the station.