Gentle Monster Garosu-Gil

Gentle Monster (젠틀몬스터) has become one of my favorite store to visit in Seoul. Apart from the cool sunglasses they have on display, their stores are one of the most artistic, well-designed spaces I've ever been to, especially for a retail store. Every locations has their own distinct design. How cool is that? They have a couple of locations in South Korea—as well as overseas—and this particular one that I visited was the one in Garosu-gil (가로수길), Sinsa (신사) area.

This was my first visit to this location and I was super impressed with the space. It has 4 floors with 4 different vibes. My intended 5-minutes quick stop at this place turned into an-hour long visit cos I lost track of time looking through every floor of this building. Everything is so fascinating and some of them are weirdly intriguing. A good example of this is this white and red themed interior that they have going on on the first floor. The stark blood red objects that are displayed around the room really pop out against the white walls and furniture.

Since there are a bunch of shots from the other floors, I'm breaking this post into two parts. So stay tuned for the next part! :)

ps: see my post on one of Gentle Monster's Quantum Projects at their Hongdae location here.

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Supertree Grove Illuminated

Prior to my trip to Singapore, a couple of my friends told me that I should go visit the Supertree Grove at night, when the lights on the trees are on. They said it's cool to see it during nighttime cos it's totally different from daytime. And they were right. I'm glad I decided to go back to this place after my first visit and got to see the Garden Rhapsody (that's what they call it on the website). When the music started playing and the lights all turned on, the place really turned into a mythical enchanted forest. If you have a chance to check out the Supertree Grove at night, I'd tell you the same things my friends told me, you should go check it out. Definitely worth the visit.

On a totally unrelated topic, the pictures on this post were all taken with my Sony A6000 and I have to say, I'm very impressed with the quality of the night shots, or at least the shots on this post. They turned out better than I expected them to be.

And with this, I'm wrapping up my Gardens By the Bay Series posts. 

See previous posts from this series here:
1. Supertree Grove // 2. Cloud Forest // 3. Flower Dome

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Samovar Tea Bar

Samovar Tea Bar is one of the places I wanted to visit when I was in San Fran. I found out about this place after I moved out of the city and so I didn't get a chance to check this place out until this trip. The cafe's interior is very different and intriguing. So I decided to look up what's the philosophy behind this brand. According to their website:

"Samovar is an alternate reality. A place where we can step out of the rat race. A place where we invite people to slow down, to inhabit the present moment, to disconnect in order to connect.... We’re about enjoying the basic goodness of being present in the moment."—Jesse Jacobs, Founder.

If that's the case, I definitely can see myself disconnecting and slowing down at this place. The interior does exudes a sense of tranquility and calmness. Definitely a good place to just sit back, relax and recharge yourself. I ordered the green tea latte and it was good. The aroma of the green tea was really nice and it was unsweetened so it gave a really clean taste. I especially enjoyed watching how the teas were being prepared. If you are looking for a good place to drink tea, I would recommend you to check this place out.

Hope everybody have a great weekend and for those of you who are in the States, enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend! :) 

ps: they have another location at the Yerba Buena Gardens, Samovar Tea Lounge, which is bigger than this one and have more food selections. 

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Flower Dome

Flower Dome at Gardens By the Bay was the last location we went to for our mini photowalk. The first thing that I felt when walking into the dome was the cool blowing air from the air-con, almost too cold for me I think, especially with the gloomy weather outside. The Flower Dome is the largest greenhouse in the world and is housed by another cool structure, just like the other architecture in the Gardens. We saw different kind of plants and flowers in this place, but to be honest, I'm not a flower kinda person, so I didn't take a lot of pictures of the flowers. The architecture was pretty great tho. Lots of curves, glass, and natural lights. Very interesting structure indeed.

One cool thing that I experienced during our walk in this place was seeing the raindrops falling on the glass above us, as it started raining 10 minutes after we walked in. It almost felt like I'm in the rain without having to get wet :P Such a great experience. Anyway, we ended up sitting down for a while in the dome, watching the rain, and talked for a bit. One of the thing I enjoy the most when meeting other Instagrammers is this, getting to know them outside those pictures they posted on their gallery. We talked about how they first met, their experiences with the Singapore's Instagram community, school life, work life, and a bunch of other things. It still amazes me how much I can relate to and connect with the people who I met through Instagram.

We decided to leave the and headed back to the MRT station after we finished walking around the entire Dome. It's still raining a little bit outside and none of us had a umbrella, so we ended up running back to the MRT trying not to get wet as much as possible. A memorable way to end the meet I should say ;)

ps: Thank you again to Venus & Jessica for such a warm hospitality during our two meets when I was in Singapore. You guys definitely made my Singapore trip more exciting and memorable :)

See part 1 (Supertree Grove) and part 2 (Cloud Forest) of this series if you are interested.

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Greetings from Iceland

Can't believe I've been here in Iceland for a week now. So far, the trip is no less than amazing! Everywhere we turn, a beautiful breathtaking view is waiting for us. I am truly amazed and in awe with what I've seen in this country. We still have a couple of more days left 'til the end of the trip, so I thought I give a quick update here on the blog. I'll still be posting stuff on my instagram and facebook page if anybody wants to get a sneak peek of my travel here in Iceland. Or, you can also follow along my adventure on snapchat (id: @greysuitcase).

For now, here's a shot of Noah from our visit to the famous wrecked airplane site in Iceland. It was quite a view. Will be back with more updates soon! Hope everybody is having a great (long) weekend! :)

p.s: check out @noahskim & @hannahmuhh instagram for more pics from this trip. They take amazing pictures! :)

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