Shopping Dream

There's something about this city that is just enchanting. Perhaps it's all the good things about Asia without being as nasty as Taipei; perhaps it's the atmosphere created and nurtured by Chinese and Japanese influences and then morphed into its own spirit.

Or perhaps it's things like the malls at Dongdaemun -- Hello apM, Doota, Migliore, and one other -- which are open until 5am. At 1am, the place was packed and 6 floors of underground parking were literally full. But once those necessary evils were taken care of, you were in for a real treat: each of the malls was at least 8 floors of densely packed deals.

It was fun just looking for fake goods in Doota, and having them carry out the imitation stuff tucked under their shirts from storage, and show them to you behind their high stands, as if it were a secret that they offer fake LV / Prada / Hermes / whatever. Heck, they have it all in this huge catalog that you can flip through. (And I'm talking about the ones that are really accurate imitations, not the ones like "Louie Vuitton".) A Prada cardholder costs W35,000 ('round $35 USD) and the quality seems pretty good.

I'll have to revisit again tomorrow and spend my obligatory 3-4 hours there to find last-minute souvenirs. The ATMs located next to the elevators at every floor make it impossibly easy to finance this quest.