#81 | Kakao Friends Seoul
I finally got my lazy ass up to blog about Kakao Friends Seoul!!!
I promised myself to have it up before the new school year started
and looks like the promise is going to be kept ✌🏻
A disclaimer first.
I didn't take much pictures when I was there
because I was too busy admiring the merchandise the store had...
and of course, putting everything into my shopping basket 😅
Unlike the Apeach cafe located in Busan and Tokyo, Kakao Friends Seoul focuses more on all the characters of Kakao Talk. Kakao Friends Seoul had several branches located all around Seoul. For more information on where the stores are & their operating hours, do check out their official website -> Kakao Friends.
I visited 4 Kakao Friends branches during my time in Seoul. The 4 branches were Gangnam Flagship store, Myeongdong Lotte Young Plaza, COEX mall and Incheon Airport T2. The store at Gangnam seems like the biggest. The building was 3 storeys high with a cafe on the 3rd level. The 1st and 2nd level were where the merchandise could be found. The other 3 stores were simple and only had 1 level for the merchandise.
For the store at Gangnam, I disappointed when I saw the food served at the cafe. When I was there, most of the visitors used the cafe as a place to rest after shopping. I hardly saw anyone buy any snacks/eating. Tbh, I wouldn't buy the pastries from the cafe either. It looked like they had been sitting here for a couple of days already. The drinks were okay though. I thought there would be Apeach themed food but, I only saw Ryan themed food :( The Kakao Friends store mainly focus on Ryan instead of Apeach. (Should have went to Busan for the Apeach cafe T_T)
So, like I mentioned earlier, I didn't take much photos because I was too busy grabbing stuffs and putting them into my basket... below are some of the photos I took which I thought were more presentable even without editing.
I saved a few more to edit for my instagram so if you want to see more photos, you can check out my instagram. The photos above are the better photos in my opinion.. the others need editing before I can post them up on instagram.. These photos are taken from the Lotte Young Plaza, COEX mall and Incheon Airport. I didn't take any photos of the Gangnam flagship store because I was busy..
Before my trip, I actually browsed through the Kakao Friends store webpage and came out with a wishlist of what the things I wanted to buy from there. Sadly, when I arrived, some of the items I wanted were discontinued/out of stocks. I still ended up spending the same amount of money because I bought stuffs that were not part of my wishlist. #wishlistfailed.
The staffs there were pretty friendly. One tip I can give is to save photos of the items you want beforehand and then show it to the staff (if you can't find the items yourself). I saw a few tourists struggling to explain to the staff what they were looking for & there wasn't wifi so they couldn't google search. Also, the staff spoke mostly basic mandarin/korean so thank god Singapore education made it compulsory to learn both english and our mother tongue language. I had an easier time communicating with the staffs there. I bought quite a lot of merchandise from the stores and I have no regrets for that because, it is so much cheaper than buying it online and shipping it to Singapore/using Airfrov.
Another tip would be to bring your passport with you if you plan to buy a lot of their merchandise/spend a lot in the store. Like what I mentioned in my Seoul post, some stores provide immediate tax refund and Kakao Friends is one of them. They will deduct the taxes immediately (provided you spend a certain amount of money) so the amount you pay at the end, is without taxes.
I highly recommend for everyone to buy the merchandise in town area instead of buying it at the airport. This is because, the store at Incheon airport doesn't accept KRW. They only accept USD so there might be a slight price difference and also, the Incheon airport branch is very small and has limited items... you probably won't be able to find a lot of items from there. Also, if you have no plans on going to the Ryan cafe then there's no need for you to visit the Gangnam Flagship store since the special thing about that store was the cafe. You'll still be able to find the most of the merchandise you want, in the other smaller stores.
Another tip would be to bring your passport with you if you plan to buy a lot of their merchandise/spend a lot in the store. Like what I mentioned in my Seoul post, some stores provide immediate tax refund and Kakao Friends is one of them. They will deduct the taxes immediately (provided you spend a certain amount of money) so the amount you pay at the end, is without taxes.
I highly recommend for everyone to buy the merchandise in town area instead of buying it at the airport. This is because, the store at Incheon airport doesn't accept KRW. They only accept USD so there might be a slight price difference and also, the Incheon airport branch is very small and has limited items... you probably won't be able to find a lot of items from there. Also, if you have no plans on going to the Ryan cafe then there's no need for you to visit the Gangnam Flagship store since the special thing about that store was the cafe. You'll still be able to find the most of the merchandise you want, in the other smaller stores.
And there you have it, Kakao Friends Seoul post is finally up, after much procrastination. I planned on publishing another 1/2 post & updating the pages on this blog before the new school year starts. Afterwards, I probably won't be blogging for a period of time since I'll be busy with my school assignments and also, planning for my upcoming trips!!
You can read about my Seoul trip here and my post on SM TOWN can be found here
You can read about my Seoul trip here and my post on SM TOWN can be found here
