The last days in Korea went by so fast! I am back home now, trying to adjust to the time difference before starting to try to adjust to the life in Finland again. However, in Seoul we did so many things during the last few weeks, during and after the final exams, that it's hard to remember everything. My final exams were all crammed on the first exam week, 3 exams in 3 days, except for one already before the official exam week about Korean history and culture. I decided that even though I want to and need to study and prepare well for the exams, I will also enjoy the time left in Seoul and make the most of it. And I think I managed to do that quite well! I combined studying and hanging out in Gangnam cafes, studied together with friends and also took some breaks from studying too to do fun stuff. For example one weekend we finally visited the famous Hongdae clubs Nb1&2 owned by YG entertainment. I have to say that out of the clubs I went to in Seoul, Nb2 was by far my favourite. Even though your clothes and hair smell like cigarettes after that, I liked the general relaxed feeling and the hip hop music there. Better than the edm clubs, of which there's an endless offering in Seoul. Other than that during the last days we did some (okay a lot of) shopping, for example in Myeong-Dong, Coex and Ewha.
I also went to have lunch with one of my professors on a Saturday with another exchange student from the same course. We talked about the culture and differences of Korea, Germany and Finland. The professor knew about Finland, having been there once, that it's cold and dark there, people "eat Rudolph" (meaning reindeer meat) and that there are ferry boats that go between Finland and Sweden that certainly have a culture of their own :D It was very interesting since in Finland I'd never imagine going to a restaurant to have casual lunch with a university professor. But in Korea it is not that unusual. We had three dishes that we all shared, another custom very popular in Korea but not in Finland.
One shopping place I still have to mention here is Express Bus Terminal. It was just a few subway stops away from us but somehow we never visited there, not before the professor we had lunch with told us about the underground shopping street there. We went there during the last week with my roommate and it's a good thing we did! The underground shopping street there is alltogether a little over a kilometer long, full of clothing, decoration and flower shops with quite cheap prices. I found a blouse and pants there, 10,000W (about 9€) each. The station also has a huge fancy shopping mall next to it, one we didn't explore that much, besides the typical Etude House haul for some cosmetics. After that we felt like we needed some fresh air and walked to Gangnam station. Keeping in with the theme of doing new things, we finally took the time to wait in line for Shakeshack, and American fast-food chain restaurant that neither of us had tried before. Apparently when something becomes a trend in Korea it happens fast and in full force. At the same time the trend might go away as quickly as it was born. It is actually more of a fad. In Gangnam there is a long line to Shakeshack all day, from before it even opens around 11am, until the evening when it closes, and seats are hard to find once inside the restaurant and already waiting for your food. However it was nice to try it and the burger was actually pretty good. I heard something similar happened earlier with a Taiwanese cafe chain called Gong Cha in Korea, there was a huge hype around it that suddenly just died out. This is something a marketer could benefit from with the hype and large momentary profits, although it also creates a challenge when the life cycle of a product or service is short.
