I’ve been putting off recapping this part of the last day in Korea because I was such a CRA-BAPPLE and literally nothing made me happy (except for maybe that time when Henry tripped HARD on a sidewalk down there).

The plan was to go to Gentle Monster, Tamburins (Gentle Monster’s perfume brand) and Nudake (Gentle Monster’s bakery – lol, I’m a GM fangirl, OK? Leave me alone). So, off to Garosu-gil we went. This is probably Henry’s LEAST FAVORITE part of Seoul, just a super ritzy, uppity street lined with boutiques and haute couture and luxury brands, like walking down a lane of unattainable things.

It’s definitely not the same since the previous times we were there. Apparently, a lot of brands moved into the nearby Hyundai Mall, including Dr. Jart! This made me so sad because I LOVED THE DR JART FLAGSHIP STORE SO MUCH. It was like walking through a Mattress Factory exhibit but with samples of things to smear on your face. The one time we went and the top floor had turned into some crazy rest/lounge area with free samples of a vitamin drink.

Dr Jart has great products but I loved going there more for the experience.

And now there is only one Gentle Monster in this section of town, too! And it wasn’t even that fun or immersive, to be honest.

Tamburins was cool, though! Jennie from Blackpink is a brand ambassador so people were actually lining up to take pictures of this wall.

I…did not wait in that line, I just continued walking past and snapped this lol. Henry said that when I was in Tamburins, he walked outside and there was another large Jennie on another wall out there and he was given the collective death glare by a crowd of people when he dared to walk in front of it, lol.

Anyway, Tamburins was a great experience! I got really cool perfumed hand lotion for me and Wendy, who ended up REALLY liking it to the point where she was texting her perfume-aficionado friend about it. I have to say that the salespeople working there were very helpful, laid back, and pleasant. I was so clueless how to even work the applicator of the hand lotion and one of them very kindly took it from me and demonstrated in a way that somehow, against all odds, did not make me feel like a fat, stupid, ugly American. Glory be!

This is the one I got myself, BTW:

I wanted to go to the Haus Dosan Gentle Monster location after this to see if the aesthetics were better, but first, we went across the street to get some late lunch at Pizza Express:

Unlike the girls at Tamburins, the guy at Pizza Express was not as happy to fulfill his customer service role for us, lol. Maybe he was just disgruntled in general but he had a very “Please make this as quick and painless as possible” demeanor, haha.

This was my kind of pizza place, that’s for sure.

And the pizza was my style too! Thin and greasy! Sorry for the grotesque photo. I was hungry and snapping a visual memento came secondary here, fo’sho.

I love this place. I want chairs like this for my house!!

I love that Yoo Jae-Suk (the Nation’s MC) and the hilarious and talented rapper Jessi ate here!

On our walk to the Apgujeong area, we passed this big car wash so I had to talk a picture for Corey because there’s some weird cultural phenomenon in the local Facebook community for our hometown where anytime someone asks what’s being built in the area, a group of hecklers/trolls say “car wash” because the joke is that there are so many goddamn car washes in the area. But then it started to cause contention and the community SPLIT: there were the trolls and then there were the people who just wanted to have real talk without underlying carwash drama in the comments. Shit got real good when Corey discovered that OUR MOM was one of the car wash trolls!

Wow, that’s way less funny when I see it all typed out.

Anyway, it took us fucking forever to walk to this other multi-level Gentle Monster enterprise and we were all pretty les miz by then.

I found the sunglasses that I wanted and even had a salesperson write it up for me, but when I took it down to the other floor where you get them fitted and pay for them, I got REALLY FUCKING BIPOLAR. Like, out of the blue, just sat down on a couch and started pouting and then had a mild and quiet flip out where I said, “never mind, I don’t want these” because I was stressed out about leaving, bottom line. I wish I could be a normal person, haha. But instead, I let my impending sadness dictate how I was going to spend my last full day in my favorite fucking place in the whole entire world because I have the emotional age of a 13-year-old. MAYBE EVEN A 10-YEAR-OLD.

It ain’t cute, EK.

But I mean, I can sit here and pretend like everything was so magical and perfect and then you could be like, “MMM SURE IT WAS HUNTY.”

Of course, Chooch was mumbling, “oh my god here we go” while Henry was poking the bear by saying things like, “JUST CALM DOWN AND BUY THE GLASSES” because history sure has shown how much women love being told to calm down.

We did go all the way to the bottom floor to see Nudake Cafe which wasn’t even crowded but even that wasn’t enough to cheer me up and, feeling the need to punish myself even more, I said, “Forget it, let’s just go.”

Honestly, Henry was probably kissing his fingertips and offering it up to God because we left the entire Gentle Monster compound without spending a dime. (Don’t worry – I ended up getting the sunglasses I wanted at the Incheon airport the next morning LOLOL,)

We left and sat down on a bench at Dosan Park and watched several adorable dog interactions (I watched with a scowl still pasted on my face but my internal sane self was saying AWWWWWWWW) and then eventually made our way to Myeongdong for last minute shopping and streetfood, and can I just say that I used the public bathroom at the subway station in Gangnam and it was cleaner than some of the bathrooms in hotels I’ve stayed at? I know, I know, that might not be saying much considering some of the dumps Henry has had us stay in.

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