Shopping in Ewha Women's University

The top shopping destinations in Korea are Myungdong, Dongdaemun, and even Gangnam underground shopping center. However, as a girl and a big time thrifty shopper, Ewha Women's University is the place to go.

As soon as you walk out of the exit, you'll notice some shopping carts lined up on the side of the street. Do not be fooled. Keep walking in further and you'll find better deals and a wider variety. Even if the vendors offer you what you think is a cheap price, most likely you will find the same item for less.

Once you pass the carts, you will notice side streets that are filled with racks of clothing. The one thing everyone should know is that most all the stores carry similar pieces of clothing or accessories. Some might sell it for a few thousand Won cheaper. My advice: look around all the stores before you buy anything and then go back to the ones with the better deal.

As you see in the picture, all these stores have racks of clothing lined outside the store with prices as low as 5000Won (roughly $4US). I can honestly say that these are pretty good quality clothing for the price compared to some major stores (ahem, Forever21).

The problem I have with shopping in this district is that most clothes are "one size fits all." Another downside is that most of these stores do not have a fitting room, so it will be impossible to know what it looks like on you until you buy it and take it home to try it on. Along with that, most of these stores do not do exchange or refunds.

As a girl and a shopper, I would recommend all women to check out this area. Another thing I forgot to mention is the CHEAP hair salons. By cheap, I mean 30000Won for a perm or color including a haircut! This is a women's university after all.

Wicked in Korea!

I love Broadway. Everything about it. What could make me even happier? Broadway in Korea (and in English)! All the famous Broadway shows that have been advertised in Korea have been with an all Korean cast in Korean, so this was a huge deal for me! 

Wicked is currently in Korea performing for two months. I've seen the show before, but I had to see it again. For those of you who do not know the storyline, it's basically what happened to the Wicked Witch of the West before Dorothy ended up in Oz.

The venue was at Blue Square in Seoul. I'm told it's fairly new. The seats were super comfortable and even for sitting on the very top in the back, the stage was very visible.

The decorations for the show were all over the building. As you can see in the picture above, there were images of witches, hats, and flying monkeys hanging from the ceiling.

Here's another adornment to the show. The stage had a bigger, scarier version of this.

The cast was wonderful. The actresses who played Elphaba and Glinda were phenomenal and hit every note beautifully (I've heard the soundtrack a million times).

Overall, this was a great show and everyone should go check it out, no matter where you are in the world. If you are in Korea, I highly suggest you go see this! The show is running until the end of July and you can buy tickets at Interpark.

4D Movie Experience: Prometheus

IMAX theaters in America are awesome. 4D theaters in Korea come pretty close.

I never realized how much I was missing out NOT watching 4D movies. The last time I did 4D anything was at an amusement park in Florida. But yes, other than taste, all the other senses do play a major role in this experience.

Without giving too much of the movie away, Prometheus is about traveling to another alien world (an apology to those who are fans of the Alien series.) The opening scene is an epic overhead zooming of a waterfall. This is when the seats started moving around as if I was flying through those waterfalls, especially since I was getting sprayed with water and I had wind blowing on all sides of me.

What I'm really excited to blog about are the 3D glasses. Now the picture above may seem like typical 3D glasses they hand out at the movies, but Korean 3D glasses are so different! If you wear glasses, you know how annoying it is to have to fit these over your own. Since the majority of Koreans wear glasses, 3D glasses in Korea are made to fit over them. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but there is a small hook at the bridge. That hook hangs over the bridge of your own glasses making it ten times more comfortable, especially since you don't have to be fiddling with your face throughout the movie (all you glasses-wearers, you know what I'm talking about).

Other notable things about the 4D theater include brief strobe light flashes during storm scenes, which actually did make thunder and lightning more intense as well as some effects specifically for this movie. Since the ticket price makes you think twice about going (18,000WON at Lotte Cinema) I had asked friends what it was like beforehand. The moving chairs, water splashes, and wind were all expected, but there was an additional effect that had green and red laser beams scanning the entire theater that had to be only for Prometheus! It definitely made it an experience that had me thinking what the 4D effects for the other movies would be like.

Icing on the cake

Koreans are so cute when it comes to dating. I'm not talking about the matching couple outfits, but about all the cool date spots.

Cake decorating with your significant other is definitely an option. There are actually a bunch of places like this in Korea, and one just happens to be right near my building! I also went with a bunch of girl friends since we didn't know it was a couple hotspot.

One of the "hostesses" will go over different options the place has to offer. There many types of cakes to choose from (white, chocolate, cheesecake), as well as different flavored cupcakes. They also go over what kind of icing you would like to put on your cake. The price range is not bad at all. For a full cake, it costs about 20,000WON and about 4,000WON for each of the cupcakes. This price includes the icing. You do have to pay extra for other decorations like sprinkles, fruits, etc, but they're fairly cheap.

The good news is that the cake is made at the place. I guess the one downside is that since they have to make so many, they keep them refrigerated. This means you end up with cold cake.

We decided to go for the cupcake option. They were surprisingly delicious and much easier to decorate!

The icing is made right in front of you by one of the workers. It's fresh whip cream icing, which means ten times more delicious than just regular icing.  I was not much of a decorator than I was at being a taster. I found myself eating more of the icing than making my cupcake look good.

Here's the final product of one of my friend's. She said she was an art major.

I definitely had fun with my friends. Although they seemed too pretty to eat, we ended up gobbling them up right after.