12 hours in Apgujeong-dong, Gangnam

Last Friday (Oct.8th), I spent 12 hours with Nicholas Fung, a friend I met through CIEE Kakao group chat, exploring the vibe of the other side of the city--Gangnam.  

[salon] We both wanted to go to a fancy salon in Gangnam to get our hair cut and permed again, so we started to look up good salons the weekend before we went, and finally chose SALON HE:ARTS. One of the male stylists there has worked for many famous Korean celebrities such as Jun Ji-Hyun. He has no available appointment time slots in the next two months, so we just randomly chose two. I called there on Tuesday to make a reservation and thankfully they have no problem communicating in English! My stylist has worked for 16 years and I could not tell she is already age 35 lol. I just let her decide the length of my hair and the way to perm it because she seems very experienced and skillful in terms of knowing what kind of style fits me the best. We were both happy with the results and found all the people at the salon very friendly.

[cafe] Then we went to Dior Cafe, which is one of the only two Dior Cafe in the world. The whole building belongs to Dior and has 6 floors in total. We also made a reservation for it because it was quite popular while the seats are limited. We ordered the 2-people afternoon tea set, which included a traditional dessert set in the form of a three-tier petit four stand and two drinks of our own pick without extra tips or service fee. The desserts all tasted pretty good and beyond our expectations (we were not sure whether it was because we were hungry lol). We checked out the other floors with all kinds of Dior products after having the afternoon tea.

[puppy shop] We passed by a puppy shop called Puppy Lab and the owner warmly welcomed us to take a look inside even though in-shop visits actually required reservations. They sell small dogs of pure breed that will not grow over 2kg. They told us the shop is pretty famous worldwide and they can always safely ship the puppies to the buyers who order from overseas through video calls. The one I found the cutest is a Maltese (sounds like a name of a protein...) called Melody and the one Nick liked the most is called Monchel, both of which were bought by other super-rich people within a week (because they are worth 7k dollars and 12k dollars respectively...).

[class time] We sat down at a Starbucks for my KLI class. I planned to skip it but the teacher had asked us for mandatory attendance for that day because of midterm exam announcements. A lot of people were working and studying there. It is the 1000th Starbucks in Korea, so the interior designs of that three-floor building are very fancy.

[shopping] After class, we went to the Celine shop next to the Starbucks and I bought a black jacket. My wallet has been crying since then but my size of the same jacket had been out of stock in Shanghai for very long, so I am glad that I finally get it.

[dinner] We went to the food court in Galleria Department Store for dinner. I got udon and Nick got pho. Although I knew he had been there so many times, I was still very surprised by how familiar with different places in the department store and even the whole area (it is really his 'home' lmao). We agreed that Apgujeong-dong is such an interesting place for people-watching hehehe.

We went back to the dorm at 9:15pm. It always takes around an hour to go to Gangnam, so usually we just go and stay there for a whole day. It was absolutely a fun day with Nick in Gangnam; most importantly, I didn't feel mentally exhausted by being with a friend for 12 hours, which was a rare case for me.