Ear-loves!

I have developed this special spending vice on fancy earrings since I got here in South Korea, and it’s a spending predicament I find so hard to resist in a country that has long been branded as fashion freaks. Now I don’t know why I decided to throw my personal efforts to looking good straight up to my ears, but I must say that jewelries really do a great job in accentuating. Earrings are probably the only jewelry piece that anyone will see me wearing aside from a watch on my left wrist. Watches are already part of my wardrobe staples, the kind that would make feel me instantly uncomfortable not wearing. I won’t be surprised if in a matter of a while, I’ll treat earrings as such.


Korean earrings can really go bold and daring with its myriad of designs here. My, I see them everywhere and they transform me to this behemoth of an obsessive-compulsive buyer. I prefer studs than dangling earrings. I just think that pearls, crystals, and gemstones as studs look more posh, as compared to the foxy and playful effects of a dangling pair of earrings. I still own a few dangling earrings, though.

Now I went out with my CCAP friends this one afternoon and decided to give them earrings as gifts, since my two middle school student buddies even came from as far as Gangwon-do just to see me and have a tour around Seoul. I also wanted to give something back to them since they let me stay at their house in the province.

We had an early dinner at Mr. Pizza (pretty much like the famous Pizza Hut, except that it has a special leaning towards women) and presented to them my gifts, only to found out that the girls didn’t want to accept them because they have no piercing as of yet. They went on explaining that it is because their mother won’t allow them to wear earrings until they reach high school, so as not to encourage excessive physical efforts to becoming beautiful. The school also does not allow students to have piercings and wear earrings in their elementary and middle school years.

Now why does this story of “repression” (haha) suddenly make me understand more why some Korean women dress and accessorize the way that they currently do?

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Travel to the Philippines!

I left the office early on a Friday night today (which should actually be a regular habit for me, don’t you think?) and craved for some leisurely walk in Myeong-dong. Myeong-dong as a fashion district, houses top Korean and international brand names alike, so it really won’t be surprising to see foreigners here as well. They really have big, beautiful stores, and international brands like Nike and Zara shout their names in the crowded streets like these:

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Filipino Gang in a Foreigners' Hotspot

It was a Sunday worth lobbying in a place where multi-cultural diversity exists for it again reminded me that I am not that alone— that I can be independent while I rely on other people for that tinge of social excitement to add to my oh-so-what life here in South Korea.

I spent the morning in Itaewon, a popular foreigners' district, located in Yongsan-gu in Seoul. I wanted to check the fashion shops that abound in the area, since I found the need for some tights and socks to wear in the office. It really is getting cold where I am now, and I have been doing some layering with clothes. I have been sporting trenchies for two weeks now.

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Ukay-Ukay Freak

Ella is definitely where the real bargain is. Family and friends know how I frequent surplus or second hand stores that abound in the Cubao and Manila area back in the Philippines, and how I am always able to prove them that I can dig whatever it is that I buy to strut along—may it be clothes, or bags, or anything, really. Hahaha. I remember the first time I brought home a purchase from an ukay-ukay back when I was in college, and my mom went nuts on such useless and ‘hazardous’ buy. Well, aside from the fact that it would be an added burden to her already heavy pile of everyday laundry clothes, like some people, she got concerned over my health and hygiene. She freaked out over the thought of clothes from second hand stores that may have come from a dead person. Yeah, that common perception. But hey, even if it is true, it’s not like the soul’s going to bug me with it. Come on. People have had so much of those horror flicks. Well, the hygiene part may be really be a question, and I’ve given it a thought until some seconds when I told myself that technology has given us a way of already doing better cleaning methods. Teehee. You see, I’ve always thought that ukay-ukay stuff has the creativity and individuality factors that a personality like me craves for. I could almost be so sure that the piece I may actually decide to buy won’t come to me in another person’s body along the street. And almost always, people have asked me where I bought the stuff that I actually just snatched from the ukay-ukay.

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