Myth Busters

Days in Korea: 3

Prior to coming to Seoul, I did a lot of research, well what I thought was research anyways. I read lots of blogs and subscribed to several you tube channels for expats in Seoul. I didn’t want to arrive unprepared or find that I was unable to get something I really needed part way through the year.  I ended up being in desperate need of a straightening iron (for whatever reason, mine won’t work with my voltage converter… but my curling iron will so go figure!)  and was given some advice from some foreign teachers at school on where to find one. On this adventure, I ended up in one store called Olive Young that left me very happy, yet slightly disappointed. This store has everything (and I mean everything) you can get at home, either in a drug store or a cosmetics store. All the popular western brands of makeup are sold here, so don’t worry that you can’t find your type of mascara, or that you can’t get the shade of foundation that you use… it simply isn’t true! I immediately found a selection of flat irons at reasonable prices. As I continued around the store I dispelled several myths about products that simply didn’t exist here… trust me, look hard enough and they do! Here’s a quick laundry list of what I found: Aveeno lotion and hand lotion (just like home! Same sizes, packaging and everything!) Vaseline Intensive Care lotions (again, the same), DEODERANT (I was told this was IMPOSSIBLE to get, and expensive if you could find it… the Nivea deodorant sold here is only 4900 W… that’s under 5 bucks Canadian!), Tampons and normal pads, Shave Gel (trust me, they do shave here!), hand sanitizer (it’s all over the place), candles (in a jar) (and a wide variety of fragrances too!), fragrances (every American brand of perfume you can think of sold in Shoppers Drug Mart is here) and the list goes on. Basically, when you come to Seoul, don’t bring anything, you can buy it ALL here – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! I’m regretting all the clothes I had to leave out of my luggage at the last minute in an attempt to fit within the weight restrictions that were wasted by all the things I was told could not be bought in Korea.

 A brief walk around the area in Gangnam where I will be living also took me to an amazing store called Daiso. In short, Daiso is amazing, basically it’s a low rent E-Mart for those that here me rant about it in China! It’s sort of the equivalent to one of our dollar stores in Canada, except it’s full of awesome things and is incredibly Asian (Hello Kitty Loofa anyone?) Apparently there is an Emart close by as well, but we’ll save that adventure for another day!

Cheers for now!

Sarah