Shopping in Seoul, Korea

Korea is known to be a shopping heaven for the ladies. In my recent trip to Korea  in May 2015, I visited some of the major shopping districts in Seoul, and here is a list of them and my experience.

Myeongdong / Namdaemun Market

Myeongdong and Namdaemum Market are walking distance away, great to visit in one day. The shopping streets lined up with one-storey shops. More than half of the shops at Myeongdong are flooded with Korean brand beauty product shops, to name a few rampant ones:
1. The Face Shop
2. Étude House
3. Tony Moly
4. Missha
5. Nature Republic
6. Skin Food
7. innisfree
8. Banila co.
9. Holika Holika
10. The Saem
11. Olive Young

They are really rampant, to the point that you can see the same franchise selling  the exact same products just about 3 shops away - imagine seeing 3 Face Shops in 5 minutes walk, that's even more crazy than Starbucks in Singapore.

A typical scene in Myeongdong

Due to the stiff competitions, many shops even give away free samples without purchase just to entice you to walk into the shop. Most shops give masks, some give cotton pads. Some are more generous (1 piece/pax), some gives 1 piece per group, and some pull back the mask after they succeeded in cheating you into the shop. Once you are in, usually a Chinese salesgirl will follow you around like a housefly and try to make you purchase something. Actually, it's not a very pleasant experience, my impression of these brands dropped. In the end, I did not buy anything from the above mentioned brands at Myeongdong (I only bought 1 cleanser from the face shop counter at emart).

Eventually I got quite bored with all the repeated shops, and I only walk into a beauty shop if they give free samples.  After the 2 hours walk in the area, I went away with 9 pieces of free masks, that's almost 1 full packet totally for free!

There is a daiso there, but it's not one price for all products. The prices are labelled for each product, so it doesn't feel like daiso anymore. The cool thing about the daiso shopping experience was that you don't need to look for price tags.

Other Korean beauty shops that are not so rampant are
1. Too cool for school
2. Laneige
3. VDL

Actually, it's only recently that I knew that the 3 above mentioned beauty brands are Korean brands. I always thought that they are from the Western countries. I bought some stuff from Laneige and Too Cool for School for my friends and some for myself. Spent more than I expected on beauty products, but I realized it was not very cheap due to the poor exchange rate (it was 1 SGD to 791 Won for my trip).

Namdaemun market, on the other hand, is more targeted for housewives and aunties. Cheap but messy stuff on cart stores like below.

Scene from Namdaemun Market

Sinchon Shopping Street (near Ehwa Women University)

It's a shopping street outside the women university, so it is also called the Korea's Ladies street. Basically it's a mini-Myeongdong.

Insadong

Another mini-Mysongdong. There is a small shopping mall called the Ssamziegil Mall, featuring the spiral architecture design. It's the similar to the Chinatown Point in Singapore, so you can keep walking along the slopes to cover the vertical building instead of stairs or elevators. (I forgot to take a picture as we were in a rush).

One observation is that the shop names in Insadong are in Korean. Those in Myeongdong are in English. Maybe this place is more for the locals.

Dongdaemun

In contrast to the shopping streets in Myeongdong, Dongdaemun is a region with are several shopping malls, typically 3-4 storeys high. The product variety is better compared to the above mentioned where you are mainly bombed with beauty shops.

To list a few shopping malls:
1. Good morning shopping mall: a lot of young people clothing shops.
2. Hello apm mall
3. Lotte Fitin: something like Takashimaya in Singapore.

There are also fabric and textile wholesale trades in the region. I almost thought I am walking in Guangzhou streets, except the language is different..

Paju Premium Outlets

A place where many high-end branded mechandise outlet shops gather in one place. Mostly sports brands (The North Face, adidas, New Balance etc), fashion brands (GAP, Bean Pole, etc), bags (coach, Michael kors, Le Sportsac etc) and others ( Tefal, Jaju). Many off-season products can be found cheaper than retail, some up to 50% off.

Paju Premium Outlets

Maybe its a shopping heaven for those into those branded products, but the prices were still beyond my tolerance even after the deep discounts. I'm just not that into branded goods, so 2.5 hours at this place was really boring to me!

Only one shop appealed to me there - JAJU. It is the MUJI equivalent in Korea. The shop atmosphere and products felt 90% like MUJI.

JAJU - the MUJI in Korea

The sale corner was really good. I bought a dress, a cardigan and a pair of windbreakers there. The windbreaker is quite functional, with zipped pockets, inner pockets, hood that can be hidden into the collar and the whole thing can be folded into a small pouch for portability - perfect for travel! Bought a pair because me and my bf got 1 each, so we have a couple windbreaker, haha!

There's hardly any Korean beauty brand shops at Paju Premium Outlet, so don't go there if you're looking for those.