COMMON GROUND (커먼그라운드)

I started one of my days in South Korea by going to the COMMON GROUND (커먼그라운드). Again, I never knew the existence of this place until I landed in South Korea. Thanks to the Instagram (again!), I found out about this place. From the Instagram pictures, I can see that this place is so Instagrammable. It will be easily slipped into one of the must-visit places in Seoul if you like all the hipster places. (I'm using the hipster word the way the youngsters in Malaysia use it).

From my brief reading, COMMON GROUND is South Korea's first and the world's largest container shopping mall built with prefabricated 200 containers. (I totally googled prefabricated after my reading - man, how I wish I had an expansive vocabulary). It is also a result of the experiment of revitalizing unused land in the middle of the city. I guess the South Korean government had this idea, "Why waste a piece of land when you can build something and generate money?" Just kidding! You can see how impactful COMMON GROUND is when you compare it to the surrounding buildings. It is definitely eye-catching and attention-grabbing.

COMMON GROUND is divided into two sections; Street Market and Market Hall. Pretty sure they tried to emphasize the difference in the space designs and the vibes between the Street Market and Market Hall as that is the only difference between the two that I remembered. Plus, as far as I remember, the items sold at both sections are quite similar like clothes, shoes, make-up products, phone cases, and a few food & beverage establishments.

As COMMON GROUND is not that big though it is the world's largest container shopping mall, I spent about 3 hours here just to fully satisfy the desire of the photographer in me. I also had fun people-watching here. The people there were so interesting and fascinating.

During my visit, Levi's actually had a pop-up store there. While I am not really sure what and how many products they carried at the pop-up store, I have to say that I really like the marketing idea of Levi's. They knew the target market and fully utilized what COMMON GROUND has to offer. As you can see, they had props with relevant hashtags - which I am pretty sure will make one's pictures look Instagrammable. I actually saw a few girls spend almost two hours just to take OOTD around there. Crazy eh.

Tip: Wear your fashionable casual street-style outfit if you want to take your best OOTD here.

Is COMMON GROUND worth visiting?
It depends as it will be a hit or miss for some people. For me, I think COMMON GROUND is worth visiting because I like seeing something new. Well, I have never been to a container shopping mall before, let alone the world's largest one, so there's that. I also like taking pictures and people-watching, which is what I did at the COMMON GROUND during my visit.