KOREA 2014: DAY 11 ~ SEOUL: Kona Beans (Leeteuk), SM Ent, FNC Ent, Mercenatpolis Mall, Lotte Mart, Chocolat Bonbon (Eunhyuk), Sukira Kiss The Radio
27 OCT 2014
Thanks to a pretty good night's sleep, we woke up and packed our luggage before heading out for breakfast at.....
Kona Beans! The outlet run by Teukkie-hyung. Directions anyone?
Getting off at the all familiar Apgujeong Rodeo Station again, get out from Exit 6 and walk all the way straight down until you see Apgujeong-ro 42-gil and turn left. Its literally almost just there so it's not hard to find. The place was empty when we entered so....yes I shameless made it my home.
Posing for grand looking pictures.
Gathering all my favourite pillows and teddy bears to cuddle in a corner.
And admiring the decoration and gifts left behind by fans. This is my personal favourite I swear if I could I would have demanded for the picture haha...HOT HOT HOT ....WHY ARE THEY BOTH SO PERFECTLY GORGEOUS !!!
And I also took the time to read all the messages compiled by fans =) SJ represent yo.
And finally our yummy brekkie was served! Hot latte and toast! It was very fulfilling and my stomach was warm and happy =)
Anyway final verdict, it is almost a must-visit place for ELFs to show Teuk-hyung some support. I feel that there is a rather intense "SJ/ELF-feel" to this place maybe due to the fact that leader chose it as such so I truly felt at home...I mean apart from the fact that I shamelessly did...hahaha...
I didn't get the honour of meeting his mum so it was a slight pity though my friend and I were joking over what I would call them haha. "Auntie?" or "Omma?" and my friend responded "Omma your head ah Omma" hahaha...I really reckon it'd be fine, mothers are generally very ok to being called mummy ;-)
Dragging our lazy asses off the comfortable couch, we took a walk down to SM Ent, for the sake for being there I guess ;-)
For those who don't know the new address, and end up at the old address instead; here's some directions =)
When you arrive at the old location just down the road from Kona Beans along the main road, you will see a huge-ass poster of an SM artist; a billboard advertisement. When I was there, it was TTS. Walk down the lane next to the poster, it will be a pretty average walk from about 10-15mins and you will past mostly houses.. When you reach the very end, take a right turn and walk for another 10-15mins and you arrive at a playground on the left across the small road and SM Ent will be on your right!
Unfortunately (?) for me there was nothing going on so I didn't get to meet any SM artists but I got to take a momento photo anyway =)
Continuing our nice morning stroll downwards towards the station, we passed by another cluster of entertainment agency buildings and FNC was one of them =) Think they had a poster of Juniel on display at that time.
We were supposed to check-out at 12noon but we were running late so we dropped Hanna a message and she was kind enough to inform us that the cleaner would come in at 2pm so it would be safe if we could get our stuff out by then. We made it back by about 1pm odd and our journey towards Hongdae begin!
Next place of accommodation: Benikea Premier Hotel Marigold. This was one of the few hotels within that district I found which was NOT a love hotel. If you haven't already learnt of this knowledge: love hotels, prostitution etc are a common thing in Korea and I believe 7/10 of girls are 'in that line'. But I have to say that I did not find anything dodgy or unsafe within that area and from reviews it seems it's fine to stay in a love hotel but I reckon my friend did not fancy seeing me bathe naked in the bathtub while she lay on the bed watching TV. So there.
Leaving our luggage with the counter because it wasn't check-in time yet, we crossed the street (a short 10min walk) to the Mecentpolis Mall. I heard it was one of the bigger and up and coming shopping malls with autograph sessions etc being held there so I reckoned it was a decent place to stay. The mall is right at where the train station is so there's no way you can miss it; a pretty and modern building.
PS. Yes a lot of celebrities stay here.
And then lunchtime! It was an oddly late hour so restaurants were empty; all food places are in the basement of the mall so we walked around and ended up at a place which sold porridge and noodles etc cause we wanted something warm and not too heavy.
This is one of the places where you need to order from a machine but we were idiots so the lady had to help us hahaha. Basically select what you want from the touchscreen, pay your money and then sit down and wait for your food.
My baby boys ate here before:
My seafood porridge which had a tad bit too much beansprouts for my liking =(
Then it was back to hotel to settle down and freshen up before heading out for the evening. Ie more shopping, cafe hopping and fangirling.
Photos of hotel taken online as I couldn't find any from my camera.
The room was decently spacious and clean but the design of the toilet kinda got to me.
The shower area is the first thing you see when you step in, right beside the entrance so if you don't use the shower curtain well, water kinda splashes out of the toilet if you don't close the sliding door.
AND the toilet bowl is situated on the inside past the shower area; toilets usually have the reverse SO if your friend is bathing and you wanna take a pee or dump urgently you have to...walk past her showering hahaha and for someone like me who pees 10 times in the night it feels like a "walk" if you know what I mean. But yaye for big room and toilet.
And then we decided that the cheapest goodies were found at the Lotte Outlet back at Seoul station so our plan was to go back there alongside Myeongdong to see if I wanted to pick up my Donghae life-size poster before visiting Hyukkie.
Donghae's birthday project:
Our loot back at Lotte Outlet was amazing, we literally shopped till we dropped spending huge bags worth of snacks and make-up. I believe we got 50 over faceshop masks at 50cents each cause they were having a 50% off
And then I was too tired to bother navigating around the very confusing MyeongDong, so we had Sushi for dinner!
After which we decided to go back to our hotel to dump our stuff cause there was no way we could lug it around anymore, our arms were falling off. It was a good choice because our next destination was Chocolat BonBon and boy was it a horrible place to get to via public transport.
Basically the first step is to take the Line 2 subway to Guro Digital Complex Station and get out at exit 3. And then...use your GPS. I'm not kidding; the area there is complicated and slightly busy, and trust me, no one knows the place you're looking for so what I did was follow the road maps for a general directions towards the industrial area.
You take a left at the first major intersection and then walk, and walk, and walk and walk somemore like you could perhaps even walk up to 30mins; I'm not even kidding. I went at night; close to 9pm so it was dark and quiet and isolated. I was walking pretty fast as I knew the cafe closed at 10 but still, I took at least 45mins to get there...and trust me, I walk fast. Another left turn at the right road will take you to the building itself; and its about the fifth shop or so there?
Once again we were the sole customers so make myself at home I did after me and KH ordered a cup of much needed hot coffee each (for the walking in the cold weather and staying awake for the next agenda) The cashier was really sweet and after ordering we literally read through the notes, took photos of all the Eunhyuk related deco, blatantly ransacked (ok no we were not destructive) all the goods and I was staring at the cakes when an old man walked in...yes it was none other than Hyukjae's appa. I felt a bit awkward cause he was looking at me and so I ran down to sit quietly, which caused KH to come over and ask me what I'm doing and so I said "I am trying to act like a demure daughter-in-law" and she cracked up pretty badly. Anyway appa came to grab a whole bunch of bread and left shortly and no I did not harass him; to me disturbing family is a huge no-no.
So with our hot coffee in our hand and CBB ribbons, we got out of the place and attempted to take a bus to KBS Sukira to see Ryeowookie. BUT we decided we didn't want to go through another fail so we flagged a cab instead. It was a fantastic decision because it was very near and it cost us very little, no hassle and got us there in no time.
Pulling up, we got off to see Wookie's car parked in front of us and so we knew we were at the right place =)
Luckily for us, the number of fans outside was quite little though there were some papers there for other shows so we stood on top of the bench (and sat down once in a while)
The guests were Eric Nam, this guy from Royal Pirates and one other guy....so there weren't much fans...a handful of people were like us; Ryeowook fans. Also chitchatted with a couple of English-speaking Eric Nam fans and KH was more fascinated by the huge ass cameras with mad shutter speed haha.
Anyway by around 1130pm KH left me to wait indoors; the place really is quite comfy, ie where the people wait by the gantry for the stars to exit. There's a toilet there and places to sit all around but the most important thing is it's indoors so it's WARM. Gosh from 10pm to 12pm, the degree was practically dropping every 10mins by the time it hit midnight I was frozen but I really wanted to see Ryeowook exit the studio.
After he left, I joined KH at the lobby area and Eric Nam came out; I went up to him to ask for a photo but he said he couldnt and kept apologizing profusely while bowing to me so no hard feelings there though I was sure I was pouting throughout our entire English conversation which had quite a few people looking on haha.
And after more waiting...Wookie appeared! He collected all the presents from the security, waved a little and headed off.
That marked the end of our sukira event as well as the day so we headed back home via the subway; glad the trains were still running and we basically just followed the rest of the korean girls heading towards the station as well. It wasn't too long a walk and I must say that I am terribly grateful we chose to stay at Hongdae cause it was only 20mins away and we were 'home' soon, comfortable snuggled in our warm and beds =)
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