Fall-ing in Love: A Quick Seoul 'Art' Guide

I'm writing this post from my hotel room in Hong Kong. How crazy is life? This was a trip that I've been a little excited for. I loooove autumn and while it brings in the rain, it's lovely and cool, and the leaves are just too pretty not to gawp at. I had the chance to go around the city again in the fall, and I couldn't resist snapping photos! I had only three goals in mind for this trip: buy art materials, a pair of New Balance shoes and makeup. Suffice to say, I got it all in one. Read on!

So I've talked about the makeup shops in Seoul before, but I'd like to talk a little more about the art stores we discovered on this trip. My go to place has always been Homi Art Shop in Hongdae (take Exit 9, and it's just at the other end of the same building as the Trick Eye Museum), but this time we explored a little more and found a couple of interesting (and cheaper) places to buy our art stuff. Homi has a lot of great stuff, like colored pencils, rows of rows of acrylics and oils, but not a lot of sets to take home. I got a Sakura Koi 24 palette travel kit at 1,000 won cheaper than in the other stores, but that was all I got.

Then there's the Hongdae University Art store, at the left building entrance of the University. This is easily much bigger than Homi, and a huge selection of art materials with a good price. They had a lot of high-quality watercolor sets in various brands. Though expensive, they're definitley high quality. Meanwhile, they actually had a gouache set! So rare to find. Here I bought a Monami felt tip pen at 700 won, and one of the many selections of brush calligraphy pens.

Another interesting place we shopped in was the Kyobo Bookstore in Gwanghwamun. I usually don't like going there (except for the food court, which has a Baskin Robbins) because I can't buy books which is CRAZY! But they recently opened up a larger stationery + art  + Artbox section that took us an hour to explore since there were so many people! The art supply section was pretty small, but I bought a fountain pen with six cartridges for 3,000 won, so it was definitely worth it. Best place to get a 2016 planner!

I also have to mention this really cool cafe I didn't take a picture of near our hostel called You are Here. It's owned by the same guys that run EatYourKimchi, and it's so nice. The food is a little pricey, but the drinks are fantastic and their croque monsieur was a cheese-filled winner!