seoul life

I've been enjoying city life these last couple of weeks since I have a flight back to Australia at the end of this week. Since this will be a permanent move, I've spent the majority of my time away from the computer and instead hanging with friends, eating good food and wandering around the streets of Seoul. Here are a few pictures of what I've been up to: the Yeido Cherry Blossom Festival.
 
A week later and all the trees are as green as can be.

Korean traditional-style buildings in Insadong.

At a Japanese teppanyaki in Hongdae.

The line at my local Starbucks (peep at winter street style)

At Harvest, in Namsan. My new favourite eating place. It's the cutest little restaurant where they grow their own natural herbs and flowers they use in their food.

Ricotta cheese and roast pumpkin salad at Harvest.

Trying out the latest department store ice-cream craze. Softree milk with honeycomb chips.

My Pimm's cup at ELBONthetable in Itaewon.

Cute white top I saw in Zara. Eyelet lace and embroidery is a big Spring trend in Seoul right now.

Now on to packing my suitcase...

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I think I should cut back on my reruns of Sex and the City....it's making me very cynical about romance, haha.

stylenanda flagship store (홍대점)

Source: my own

Stylenanda. nanda. nanda.

I'm sure you've heard about Stylenanda by now. It started as one of many online shopping malls in Korea, launching in 2005, and has become frankly, a HUGE brand. Now they have stores all over Korea, in HongKong and Japan plus they sell accessories, make-up and shoes! The other day I visited their flagship store (three floors of goodness) located in Hongdae for the first time since they opened. Stylenanda's aesthetic is not exactly my style per say but they do have a lot of cute stuff if you dig around. I like their basics range and make-up the most. I couldn't walk out of the shop without my cream blusher but almost couldn't get mine because there were so many tourists buying all of it! See, their make-up line (Three Concept Eyes) is very popular in Asia.

trending in Seoul: shearling jackets

Source: Acne/ WeThePeople

I think the biggest item that's trending in Seoul at the moment is the shearling motorcycle jacket. Most of the ones I've seen so far in the street shops are synthetic shearling though so if you want to go for the real deal (proabably a lot warmer too!) I would suggest getting yourself an ACNE one. Velocite is the style!

neon second

Source: my own

The 8 Seconds store at SinsadongGarosugil (신사동가로수길), Seoul. Can you tell that neon colours are super trending right now?!

Paul&Paulina

Source: my own

Longtime readers of my blog will know that I have a thing for boulangeries and I will hunt them down for a piece of good, really good bread. P&P is a bakery that specializes in only 14 items baked daily with no artificial preservatives, flavours or sugar. I've tried their 'Brezel', chewy 'Black Olive' & 'Ciabatta' so far and every bite is as scrumptious and worth the slightly expensive price tag.
 
Oh, and they have peculiar opening times from noon till seven p.m (Mon-Sat) and every 1st Mon of the month off too.

Paul&Paulina
 #114, 115 Islex B.D 37 Yeouido dong,
Youngdeungpo gu, Seoul.

IFC Mall, Seoul

Yesterday, I wandered over to the newly opened IFC Mall in Yeido to see what the hype was all about. It opened in November of last year so I'm a teeny weeny bit late but...I still got there. So IFC Mall is a three floor underground shopping complex situated completely underneath the IFC Center. I happened to go on a weekday when there weren't any crowds so it magnified the feeling of vastness but it's actually quite a do-able mall, shopping-wise. There was a bookstore, movie theatre, food court, all that jazz...basically I felt like I fell through a rabbit hole into America. It didn't help that there was a Hollister store there which couldn't correct my disorientation about the place...lol.
 
They have a huge high-street store line up with H&M, Uniqlo, Mango, Zara and more...


Best Zara layout I've ever seen, in this mall. I wasen't allowed to snap more pics for you, urgh.

Was introduced to this new store Pull & Bear...filled with TRF Zara-ish kind of clothes.


A SuecommaBonnie boutique that is close by. Finally!

Liked these cute overalls I saw in H&M...


Those were just a few snapshots for you. If you're ever in Seoul it's worth a visit just because the architecture is so new. Hope you liked.