Saturday 12 June 2010

Hongdae Walk


So I went to Hongdae today! Me and my friends planned out our trip to the place a week ago, since we wanted to go to famous Hongdae Free market. Free-market is held on every Saturday at the playground right in front of Hong-ik University. I have heard a lot about them so was so excited to see them finally!---until I woke up this morning and it was POURING outside...

I could not believe it.. although I still was going anyways since we didn't know if the market will be canceled or not. They did not update any information about the occasion when it rains on the market day. Anyways, we went there and oh hell.... yea the market was canceled. I only saw empty playground and was so disappointed.

However, we were going around the places since Hongdae is always one of the most fun place to visit in Korea. There are so many cute and lovely stores/cafes around that area. Here are some of the photos I took-

Pretty store I found on the way! The place had super unique interior. It was so small, and all the items were displayed along with the stairs. The place seems little bit messy, but definitely worth to visit. All the products selling inside are majorly ethnic vintage items.




 Awesome graffiti and Super green house we saw... I loved the color!


Graffiti along the street-there were tons of them!!! Sure it is most popular location for the artists in Korea.

  

We found mini gallery on the way. It was closed but when we sneaked our peek through the window, the space was super awesome! It had very low ceiling and had metal floors and walls. It looked like some type of secret stock room of the factory-very cozy one.
The name of the gallery was Myth Hong. (It's funny when you read it in Korean since it sounds like Miss Hong. Sounds like someone's name.)



Pretty Minto Cafe on the way. Looked like you are entering some type of secret garden.
Thou their system is not our favorite (BAD drinks!!)-so we didn't choose there to snip our coffee. 



We found the place called-translation: Creative Room(?) 
It seemd like some type of public cafe that is open to everyone and offer you space to read 
lots of free art magazines and art books. It also offers free wi-fi and free drinks so it seems like very reasonable place.. It was pretty restful inside too. Very quiet, clean, and simple.

Love this description board in front of the creative room.

We read lots of magazines..also got great information about some interesting gallery shows so we decided to go right away!










Pretty lovely stores on our way. Only sad thing was that they all had one style only- LOVELY girl concept. Simply, not my type.



This painting is from the show we went. It was my favorite piece within the gallery. I forgot about the name of the show-thou I have catalogue. I personally loved the surrealistic approach of the artist. Thou I thought that the overall quality of the paintings were little amateuristic- in the sense how she handled the paints. My friend commented that she thought it was the painting from our school's FYP final.
( no offense to the artist. We liked it overall)



After the gallery we stopped at this little mini store to grab something to eat. The store looked really cute outside so we entered, but oh no!! I immeditely smelled smoke...it was smoking-allowed place. (HATE those places.) My friend wanted to eat in this specific store so I decided to stay..
We ordered waffle and curry.(I know what an awful combination)
The foods were alright, but the magazines they had were much better. 
(meaning, foods were really OK. Nothing more.)

  
Lovely displays in front of the store.


It was still raining outside... I bought new lipstick on the way so I have it on in this picture-although you can't really see the color. It's light pink+lavender. I have been looking for this color and fortunately, found it at TONYMOLY. (personally love that store!)

  
Awesome cakes and sweets in bakery.. we passed by, but didn't get to eat them. We were too full...
That bakery reminded me of those typical Japanese's bakeries selling sweets. If you have gone to one of them, you know what I mean.


After walking and shopping for awhile, we explored this beautiful cafe! We wanted to sit down and have some chat so it was perfect destination.

Both of us ordered green-tea latte and the taste was- AMAZING!!! No kidding, it was the best green tea latte I have ever had in my life! Bye bye Starbucks Green tea latte! I found much better one finally! Sorry about my non-changing face expression. I will try to smile from next time.... was getting way too tired by that time. We went around way too long...



In end of the day, we met one of our other friend, and had dinner together at X-generation. It was very small and classic Korean restaurant. After that we went to watch World Cup!!! Korea vs Greece was great. We won by 2:0!! It was such a crazy night... Everyone was so excited about the game and blah blah. Now I gotta go work out so will be back with other reports! 
(Reports about what I got from this crazy day shopping!)
Have a great week gals!


1 comment:

  1. I'm a huge fan of Storets and enjoy reading your blog as a Korean-American fashionista living in NY. It's fun to see Korea, the trends, and shops through your eyes. Thanks for posting. Just so you know, my style blog posted a look incorporating a Storets bag which I tagged. You should come by and say hi! www.FabGabBlog.com

    ReplyDelete