Tamburins

While I am still marveling how cohesive and huge retail and cafe spaces are in Seoul, we walked into the three-storey flagship of Tamburins at Garosugil. Escaped the crowd on the ground floor and went upstairs where it had a lot fewer humans. 

Walking into the store is like being soaked in all elements of fashion, beauty and art. It's truly an experience. There were art installations of giant candles in the form of cats, and random displays of Korean traditional knots arts and crafts. We were welcomed to try out its scents. I happily washed my hands in the very nice sinks with a choice hand wash, then smeared a little hand balm on clean hands. Ooof. 

No, I don't know Tamburins because of Jennie (BLACKPINK). In fact, I walked by that wall in Sinsa-dong and S pointed it out. I was like, 'Who is Jenny?' Yeah, I didn't know how to spell it when I didn't make the association. I'm so not a BLACKPINK fan. I can't even name one song. I could vaguely name two members since their names are always in the news, and there're only four of them. But I can't quite remember their faces. Hurhurhur. Okay, whatever. 

Well, I wouldn't mind stocking up on two bottles of scents. Some of the girlfriends wanted perfumes from Seoul as well, but they didn't specify a brand. So I got them from Tamburins. If you have your passport with you, at many of these big-name shops, the tax refund is immediate — that makes it so much more convenient.  

That cute egg-shaped bottle got me. Heh! I really wanted 'Holy Metal' (that name!), but the scent didn't appeal at all. Took a sniff and decided on 'Late Autumn' for myself. Apparently 'Chamo' is their most popular scent; so I got that for the friends, along with 'White Darjeeling'.