Annyeonghaseyo!

In case you hadn't guessed, the subject of this post means "hello" in Korean. It is the only word I actually learned on my trip, having heard it several times a day. If you've been keeping an eye on my Instagram widget in the sidebar (or even better, are following me there @wastingmytalent) you already know that I had a great, great time. I've already chopped my millions of pics to a best-of album containing "only" 250 photos and will also upload some pictures of the beauty of South Korea here. Until then, it's easier to go ahead and share a best of of my retail exploits as usual.
As you might or might not know, Korea is THE mekka for all things cosmetic. The BB and CC cream phenomenon originated there and every other shop seems to sell sheet masks. Despite über cutesy packaging, all makeup is really good quality as well and I bought quite a bit of stuff:

In my defense, half of it is gifts for equally cosmetic-obsessed friends. Look at all the trial-sized goodies I got! The bear brooch was not a gift,  but just photobombed...

Nailpolish was particularly tempting (can you at least pretend to be surprised?) and again is really good quality. I'm wearing the neon orange-y one on the right today and it applied like a dream. I managed to get my travel companion hooked on beauty blogs and YT channels while there and judging from the amount of time she spent bent over her iPhone, frantically searching for that Holy Grail deep red lipstick, I seem to have created a monster...

Here are some more nice things I bought as souvenirs. I'm actually not keeping any of these cute silk pouches for myself:

Regarding clothes, I will say one thing: there's Uniqlo in Korea. Gasp. If you've followed this blog for some time, you know about my Uniqlo obsession. Here's a selection of my haul (I did not include basics such as a white shirt or black cardigan in the picture as they look a bit underwhelming when photographed). I love the polka-dotted t-shirt by Lulu Guinness for Uniqlo, the grey jersey blazer and super-cosy cotton hoodie (from another collaboration with a Danish label whose name I have forgotten). The t-shirt with the bear is from Teenie Weenie, a brand I had never heard of before. I wanted to buy a pair of white Converse chucks from the super lightweight line in Las Vegas, but they didn't have my size. In Korea, I saw this cute neonish pink/orange one and liked it better. Converse were also considerably cheaper than in Europe so I pounced. The little tote bag with the green stripe is from Korean brand 8ight Seconds. Regarding fashion, tops with navy stripes seem to be en vogue in Korea right now and we often saw groups of friends or couples in stripey "uniforms"

I also bought a super huge and super cheap scarf with some of my favourite colours:

I had actually planned to buy a cheap suitcase for the return flight (as a "frequent traveller" with Lufthansa, I would have been entitled to a second one) and to buy more groceries as well, but we couldn't find any such cheapo luggage and I didn't want to fork out a lot. Well, thanks to my tried-and-tested method of dumping some old clothes along the line, I managed to fly back with less than 20 kgs of checked-in luggage, despite bringing way too many clothes and shoes as usual. Some things never change...