We ate Isaac Toast again in the morning :D but hungry so no pictures there.
Then we headed to Ewha University area to take pictures at the university and to shop. Really easy to head there, just walk straight up after exit 2 or 3 to this long road to the super pretty campus.
Maybe you are wondering why I so weird, need to shop at so many places?
A lot of people visit hongdae, sinchon and edae areas on the same day. But they are all different and you might wanna spend more time in some over others
Edae - mix of expensive clothes (think 42SGD, 39,000 won) and cheap ones (goto mall prices of 5,000 won or 10,000 won) but FASHION HERE is excellent. Like a lot of their items look more fashionable than what I see in Hongdae or in Gotomall. Terrible selection of clothes for men, and finding food is a bit hard coz the area covered is quite big
Sinchon - walkable distance from the back of Edae to the back of Sinchon, but because we did not have the red angel's map (the tourist map!) since we arrived too early, we made a whole big round and I was so scared we would be late for our checkout :((
There are more food options here in terms of cafes and speciality shops (bingsu) and bbq places
Hongdae - A mix of food and shops, more happening at night with busking and stuff. Shops sell more generic stuff and sometimes at higher prices sooooo while I loved walking about, I wouldn't want to hit this area on day one coz I feel I will pay a bit more than usual for stuff.
Back to Edae, so there was a lotte Elcube here that SOLD A LOT OF THE APRIL SKIN HAIR DYE AND CREAM AND WHAT NOT. But even olive young here was in full stock. I work so hard on days 1 2 3 to find hair dye for what sia here all have?!
Inside this elcube was a line store as well as an area selling YG stuff. interesting
and then we started shopping in the area... I actually bought quite a lot of tops this time. Oversized shirts are in right now, while in 2014 I struggled to buy clothes coz fashion dictated that crop tops were in. yucks.
This bubble tea shop we found along the small streets was really good! We ordered a grapefruit ade with jelly and finished it in minutes lol
So cute their menu so many languages. smart :D why singapore no liddis?
Shoutout to this particular clothing store which was HUGE inside yet easy to miss on the outside. She gave us a whopping 5,000 won discount for just buying two pieces amounting to 30,000 (instead of 35,000). wah that's a lot of money leh, taiwan give me 80 cents off I laugh already.
We headed back to Sinchon after coz I wanted to eat bbq just one more time before we flew back hehehe thanks mummy u da best
We saw this the previous night and thought it was THE place that we ate back in 2014 that was really good. Unfortunately whatever we remembered of it... it doesn't seem to be the same when we ate it for lunch.
But in comparison, I'd much rather eat here which cooks my food over legit coal rather than just a gas stove la.
It was time to go boohoo and with heavy hearts... or was it just me... we headed to the airport and did my worst nightmare... TAX REFUND
Okay honestly no matter what the online info I got from websites and blogs just made things so confusing. SO HERE. IS. A SIMPLE. GUIDE. TO. TAX. REFUND.
- There is IMMEDIATE tax refund at some shops (esp touristy areas like hongdae, myeongdong), which IMMEDIATELY deducts tax from your total amount PROVIDED you spend above certain limits
- some places like innisfree hongdae told me to spend about 100,000 and I got like 6,000 won refunded to me (coz I was already at 96,000 won... haha) which was deducted immediately and reflected on the receipt
- most places seem to have min spending of 30,000 won
- There is TAX REFUND that you have to do at the airport for some other shops PROVIDED you (again) spend above certain limits
- Make sure you ask for tax refund, then they have to print super long receipts and give it to you in an envelope
- there are MULTIPLE tax refund companies (like whut why... global blue.... global tax free.... blue colour orange colour like WHY) but IT DID NOT MATTER WHEN I WAS AT THE AIRPORT
- There are things to fill in on the receipt (credit card no.... passport no... address).. BUT NO NEED TO WRITE
This tax refund counter has people sitting there (during office hours only... unfortunately) who can speak to you in english. They scanned my passport then took my 5 receipts and scanned its barcodes.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
Then they told me to go into the departure hall area and find Gate 27/28 which is near gucci and I can collect my money (cash or credit) there.
And surely enough...
I got 9,600 won back from here. like wowww great.
This was a much better experience than 2014 where I had to.... nvm go read it yourself again if you want haha it is in my seoul tag :P
Although no one asked me to open my bag and declare the items I bought (I mean... 1 shorts 1 shirt 1 bag of stuff from LINE I still can declare la) but I would think that for luxury items and expensive items they would indeed ask you to show it to them.
So hope that helps! :D and I'm off now to rest before I blog about... TAIWAN :>