South Korea, 2024

This afternoon after a lot of site seeing we decided to go shopping in Gangnam, an area of Seoul made famous for the song ‘Gangnam Style.’ Though we didn’t go, there is a statue in the area which plays the song on loop during the day- it sounded like a form of torture to us.

The shopping experience was like nothing you’d ever seen. Yes there was your usual clothes shops that we have in the UK like H&M, Zara, etc etc.

But Koreans are also obsessed with these adorable characters, everything has to have a character- even the metro systems have their own mascots. On the high streets there is shops dedicated to these characters offering everything from character branded passport covers, car fragrances, pillows, PJs, teddies, mints, bags, and everything in between. We all went absolutely crazy, yes Tamara had already heard of all this stuff before coming, but for Hannah and I it was a new experience, and we made sure to bring home plenty of characters merchandise 😂Read more