Day 2 – (Saturday, May 4rd) our first full Day in Seoul
We woke up and ate some of our snacks. Where do you think our first destination in Seoul was? If you guessed a record shop, you’d be correct! We walked to Kyobo Bookstore (the largest bookstore chain in South Korea) in Gangnam, and went to the cd section area called Hottracks. We picked up some albums and browsed around. The store was kind of like a Barnes and Noble. It was two stores, had a kids area, board games, a lot of books, stationary, all the things you would expect in a store like that.
We also visited the Gangnam Tourist Office, because we were walking by and they had a stage outside and we were curious who would be performing. They said it was a local school group and then talked to us about all our plans for our trip. The guy had been stationed in America and learned English so he was fluent. They were amazed at the knowledge we already had at the attractions and we talked KPOP groups for a while then went about our way.
We went back to the room to rest up from all the walking and and look through our cds, then after getting recharged, decided to head to our #1 Food Destination on our trip, SM Celebrity SUM Café’ and Market.
We took the subway for the first time, and met another guy who spoke English, turns out he lived in New Mexico in High School. He was really nice and showed us how to stand off to the sides so we can let people off the subway. We took the subway over to Coex Mall, and walked around and checked out the events they were having around the mall. We then walked up to the SM building with the café and market in it. This is the one with the pink digital blocks at the entrance and teddy bears. When you walk in you are hit with posters and music of SM Artists. We have seen a number of videos of the area, so had a general idea of the layout. We walked over to the Livery and looked at all the photobooks and albums they had in there, Dree sat at the spot Taeyong was at and put on the same headphones.
Next we walked downstairs to the Marketplace. WOW. This is where a lot of the good merch is. All the cool things you want with your artist is here, also food items. They have some different items than SM Town so if you see something here, get it. There is also a huge window (with the blinds down) that is one of the practice rooms. So you may get to see someone practicing in there.
SM Entertainment Entrance 
Shinee 
Xiumin of EXO 
Lay from EXO 
Jaehyun from NCT 
Taeyong of NCT 
Ten of NCT 
Taeil from NCT 
Doyoung from NCT 
TEN from NCT 
Mark from NCT 
Taeyong from NCT 
Practice Room 
Outfits Display 
NCT DREAM photos outside the practice room 
Merch to buy 
Merch to buy 
Bye SM, until next time…
We walked upstairs with our big hauls and stood in line at the Celebrity café. We stood in line for 20-30 minutes waiting for a seat, then it was our turn to get a table. We knew what we wanted before we even arrived, their Korean Fried chicken and Fried rice. That is what we got, along with some refreshing beers. The chicken was really good, the best I had in Korea. It was enough for 3 or 4 people, so we took some home and at it as left overs on another day.
We left and started heading back. Originally we were going to head over to another part of town and check out the Buddha Birthday festival celebrations, but we were really tired. We stopped by SM Town and checked out the museum store, but decided to wait on the rest for one of our other days we were visiting. End of our long day back in our room.
Next – Day 3