S. Korea | Brooch Shopping at Namdaemun Plaza

Continuing to my previous Korea trip post (here), I want to introduced Namdaemun to my readers. I'm pretty sure everyone who already went to Seoul will know about this place because if you go to Korea but Namdaemun is not in your go-to list, then you are seriously missing out. Namdaemun is very famous with cheap goods from apparels to accessories and they are all mostly handmade. And you can find all kinds of souvenirs in Namdaemun. Patches, cutleries, t-shirts, fridge magnets, nail clipper, hanboks for adults or for the kids, you name it, they have it. Namdaemun also located near prominent districts like Myeongdong, Itaewon, Hongdae and Dongdaemun.

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This time we left early in the morning because we didn't want to waste a lot of time in the house like the day before. I got up at 6AM and I saw my best friend already had her ramen and watch Scarlet Heart on her phone while waiting for all of us to wake up. I helped her did her hair the night before using all the stuff she bought from Nature Republic and I was happy that she liked it. When we were at the subway station, Adam got the camera so all the photos taken at the subway, was taken by him. The train journey to Namdaemun was smooth because there was no confusion like before. Took about 69 minutes from Juan to Namdaemun. With the help of our favorite offline app, the direction to our destination was smooth.

We're actually wanted to go to Dongdaemun because I was dying to see the place for its futuristic and modern architecture but my friend wants to make a quick stop at Namdaemun since it was on the same route. She told me about a blog she red about a plaza in Namdaemun that sells a lot brooch and one of the seller was very famous among Malaysian and Indonesian, so she lead the way and I just followed her instructions.
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Juan Station (22 stations) → change to Line 4 in Seoul Station → Hoehyeon and walk 2 minutes to Namdaemun Market. 

I like it that the subway station was empty, more seats for us haha

The weather was super nice that day, I like how all the photos turned out

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Hoehyeon station is always crowded no matter what time you visited. It was always packed with people and we often let the other people went in first before waiting for our turn to avoid commotion and the pushing and the separating ⎯ because that happens to me on our 2nd day. And once we got out the station, we were welcomed by fresh fruits that was sell by the pavement.

We were so tempted to buy the fruits because it was so fresh-looking and cheap but it was too early to carry all that around while strolling for brooch shopping. We decided to buy it later. The plaza was too big to miss it. Once we got inside, we didn't know where to look because there was so many handmade accessories laid in front of us. The store we intended to go was on the 1st floor and I think the aisle is number 207.

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This is the aunty that we bought our brooch from. She can speak Bahasa a bit and super friendly

This is the brooch my friend bought. Some brooch is made with Swarovski crystal but the price is very cheap

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Keep in mind that only 2 person max can visit each section due to small & cramped aisle and alley. They don't want the place to get crowded. So I went in with my friend Ayu, while my other 2 friends, Ashley and Adam was waiting outside. There was so many beautiful stuff that we had a hard time choosing. Looking at all these rings reminds me of my mom. I said to myself that if she was still here, I would buy a bunch of these for her. She would definitely go crazy over these beautiful pieces. I still kept her jewellery with me so I know what kind of style she would go for. The bigger, the shinier, the better.

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Adam took a photo of this girl watching EXO on a music show and said "nah, geng korang!"

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We stepped outside from a different door and we were welcomed by street foods, cheap leather goods, souvenirs and halal kebab shop. My friend was bugging me about hotteok (red bean filling pressed bun or pancake) and we stopped at some random hotteok stall for her to buy but for some reason, she got the wrong hotteok. It wasn't red bean filling but it was some kind of glass noodle or japchae but I'm not really sure what it was. She was so sad about it she gave it to me. LOL!

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ONE TIP: DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING WHILE YOU WERE WALKING AROUND UNLESS YOU WANT TO BUY IT. THEY WILL SCOLD YOU FOR TOUCHING IT ESPECIALLY THE FURRY KEYCHAIN. I KNOW, IT'S WEIRD BUT YEAH, TAKE IT FROM US.

I don't need a brooch but I should've bought some for my sister but she didn't want it because it's too bold and shiny for her. She has her own style so I respected that. This is the place that everyone should give a visit for sure. Not necessarily buying brooches or accessories but just walking around it is fun, because you can feast your eyes with a lot of stuff. I have no other female adult that I would love to bring here, but for those who still has mothers and aunts who would surely love this kind of stuff, do bring them here because they will come home with at least one bag full of stuff.

I will draft more post regarding my trip to Korea. I will try my best to remember every detail because I didn't have my journal at that time to wrote down my journey, so I'm pretty sure I will forgot a few things. Have any of you who already been to South Korea, went to Namdaemun?
Thank you for reading. Much love, T.

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Listening to:
 ‬Peter Sandberg - Who's There
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