*note that they have re-located near-by since this Post
and I have LINKED to the new location down below,
while still keeping this as this includes regional guide also :
no, not the gigantic cube store you’ve been to in other metropolis
of which the nearest is across the Strait in Tokyo and Osaka while the first Beijing store opened July 2008 .
Mac use is different in each country relative to its tech culture and Apple’s marketing, where in South Korea used very much less compared with other developed countries . one big obstacle barring Macs to be used seriously in business is (ActiveX) security compatibility with Korean banks on-line . then there is the fix’em-up-and-make-it-run ! mentality of Korean users than having everything done for you by Apple (the company) and the Mac (the computer). still it is used foremost by graphic artists, music & video producers and die-hard afficionardos . now this is a whole world apart from the portables in iPod and iPod Touch (iPhone without the phone) which is immensly popular with a faithful following .
Apple marketing has been rather subjective in South Korea, with rather-small independent contract stores . but has been building pace since last year putting up shop in HyunDai Department Store chains . adding up to 5 major-but-still-minor Apple stores nation-wide (before this opening). plus directly-run On-Line Store open since November 2006 .
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this one open today is in hand with KeumKang, the oldest footware company in South Korea, thus their first store located across from their shoes store and apparel store “Spris” . contains a 6-story building – not as large as global flagship stores – of which lower 3 floors are showrooms .
this is prime location smack in the middle of MyeongDong (formerly MyungDong where fashion started in Korea) in central downtown Seoul . where in weekends crowds literally form moving blocks comparable to neighboring Tokyo’s own Shibuya main crossing . this also has become Japanese tourist ground along with DongDaeMoon (East Gate) wholesale district, so much so restaurants have adapted to their less-spicy, sweeter taste .
the land-mass of the building is quite small, far from the Apple Stores you would be used to States-side and more like an American Art School in the Latin Quarter of gaie Paris ..
here’s my pictorial floor-guide from top to bottom 😉
FLOOR 5
FLOOR 4
FL.3
FL.2
FLOOR 1
doubles as official support center,
open 9am~9pm daily except New Years & ThanksGiving
Subway Line 4 MyeongDong Station Exit 6 and walk straight North and after 2nd large block :
located next pedestrian block on left across from Spris / Coffee Bean / KeumKang Shoes
( July 2010 Update : still no news of Official iPad landing, but almost as if to brace itself from the crowd awaiting for sale commencement of iPhone 4, they have hence moved to across the street into a larger building – so again, right across the street from what I mention here AND a few buildings up North )
several discount & giveaway events going on now at their barebone
FrisbeeKorea Official Site
http://www.frisbeekorea.com
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while you are in MyeongDong I suggest you check-out among the so-many, many, many+ things to do there :
- Krispy Kreme Donuts where half of the line waiting are young Japanese tourists – from Apple Store keep walking North the direction you were walking from Subway Exit, turn left at the next large pedestrian block (at MyeongDong Art Theatre) and is on your right on the next block .
- Sony ShowRoom right across from Lotte Young Plaza department store at West Entrance of MyeongDong – from Krispy Kreme keep walking West the direction you were walking and turn left at the next big road which is MyeongDong’s West Entrance .
- Lotte Department Store : Duty Free Shop on 10th floor, with large grocery section with imports underground BF floor – from Sony look across the big road and it is the 3rd large building to the right accessible by underground passage .
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*but hold it there before you go on a shopping spree : a step short of an all-out virtual nation, South Korea has an extensive myriad of internet shopping malls (pronounce it as “on-line shopping mall” word-by-word) where even apple products especially accessories are mighty cheaper if you look for them, mostly delivered on your doorstep the next day . but again here you will the assistance of a friend who can read/write Korean characters .
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[ Apple Stores AND Support Centers in Korea links ]
official Apple Korea On-Line Store (in Korean only)
http://www.apple.com/kr
independent Apple ReSeller Stores and out-sourced Support Centres (Korean)
http://locate.apple.com/kr/ko/
if you are in Busan (formerly Pusan) : largest A# in central location is right across from Migliore on the East side of SeoMyon .
Busan Subway Line 2 Exit 6, turn around and follow the large road East past JeonJaLand (Electronics Land) and turn right at the next large block .
– oh another one opened in the new Shinsegae Department Store in futuristic Centum City on entrance to HaeUnDae Beach –
– yes, Korea Tech BLog is /packed/ with helpful information,
very useful for your sojourn in Techno-Metropolis, February 2009 –
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[March update] more good news !
FrisbeeKorea will open another Apple Store in HongDae, the jazz bar-stuttled art school area West of downtown Seoul .
– Subway Line 2 HongDae Station Exit 5 turn left at the next large block, will lead you uphill towards HongIk University . past the railway and midway up, across from the apartment complex, to your right where it used to be ‘Vigevano’ shoes store building has a ‘Frisbee’ sign under construction . this is a 3 story building but has larger ground than MyeongDong above . opening date is April 10th .
haven’t been there but the clerks at the main store say the building is wider than the MyeongDong main store
but has less floors thus a tad smaller than the main store but still pretty large considering current independent stores .
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[ March 2010 UpDate ]
a year past and now a total of SEVEN Frisbee Stores around the Korean Peninsula Wooha !
um, although still /very/ limited to the most trendy areas for the young college students in the Capital of Seoul AND in the most crowded of Korean cities ONLY .
I will give a run-down on how to reach there mostly via subway, with most /right/ next to their flagship shoe stores run by the same head company KeumKang .
still, you should know the earlier two stores introduced above are uncomparably LARGER in size as well as merchandise available .
all Frisbee Stores open Monday to Saturday 11am ~ 9pm, and Sunday until 8:30pm
only closed on Lunar New Years AND ThanksGiving Day – the TWO major traditional holidays in Korea .
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[ Frisbee Store 3 in Busan or Pusan ]
OK this is the Southern Sector of South Korea’s second City and a major Port .
this whole area of NamPo Dong AND GwangBok Dong is where fashion AND style started out in Modern Pusan before vaguely getting renamed into Busan with a ‘B’. so this would be after the Korean War when large amounts of goodies AND people arrived on the surrounding docks .
Busan Subway Line 1 NamPo Station Exit 1 turn Right at the next alley, 2nd road upfront is camera-row of Busan where some Japanese latest digital cameras (thus Japanese domestic models NOT for export yet) arrive through unofficial route via boat .
turn Left on this road where starts the hair salons AND fashion, so advance 2~3 blocks then Frisbee is on the Right corner of the 3-way intersection .
however WITHOUT turning Right for Frisbee, straight ahead in the following several blocks to the Right is the famed Can Market (Kkang-Ttong-Shi-Jang) AND International Market (Keuk-Jae-Shi-Jang) both crowded open markets where black market merchandise used to flow out of the American Base as well as from all around the World by boat (when imports were largely illegal to protect domestic makers) .. and some /still/ do today – why ? taste a Coke bottled in Coca-Cola Korea and you’ll know the difference -_-
and back to the Subway Station on Exit 2 you will come out to the famed Fist Market of “Ja-Gal-Chi Shi-Jang” where now as a tourist spot you will get ripped off .
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[ Frisbee Store 4 in KangNam, Seoul-South ]
Subway Line 9 ShinNonHyun Station Exit 6 you are standing in front of Kyobo Tower which contains one of the largest English AND Japanese section of Kyobo BookStore on the UnderGround Floor, below which is another extensive stationary AND art supply store along with the dying breed of CD Store .
but walk straight from the Subway Exit and Frisbee is just in the next building to your Right 😉
where as Subway Exit 4 will lead up up-hill towards the posh Ritz-Carlton Hotel AND Novotel Embassador KangNam .
or if you want to take a stroll in THE most trendy gathering area for the young and hip :
Subway Line 2 KangNam Station Exit 6 will place you in front of New York Bakery where everyone waits standing for their loved ones,
and after 3~4 blocks of pleasant stores you will reach Frisbee onto your Left .
also Subway Exit 7 will lead you to TWO popular movie theatres in City Theatre AND KangNam CGV a few blocks to the right .
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[ Frisbee Store 5 in DaeJeon ]
located smack in the middle of South Korea, is considered the most ‘technical’ of all cities for its research facility .
and Frisbee is pretty close to KTX bullet train station so can take a stroll 6 blocks from its West Exit .
DaeJeon Subway Line 1 JoonAngRo Station Exit 1, is onto your Right on the 2nd block
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[ Frisbee Store 6 in ShinCheon, Seoul-West ]
– NOT to be confused with ‘ShinChun’ also on Subway Line 2, which is a smaller gathering area in South-East sector of the Capital –
located towards the West just BEFORE the other Frisbee in HongDae,
here is a classic campus area where 3 Universities are nearby – HongIk, YeonSae AND EeHwa .
Subway Line 2 ShinCheon Station Exit 2 and is on your Left on the next block .
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[ Frisbee Store 7 at GeonDae, Seoul-East ]
this is another campus area East of the Capital where TWO Subway Lines meet :
Subway Line 2 GeonDaeIpGu Station Exit 5
Subway Line 7 GeonDaeIpGu Station Exit 4
across the road on the ground floor in the corner of a recently built multi-complex consisting of Lotte Department Store, Lotte Cinema, Emart SuperMart AND Star City high-rise apartments .
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[ Frisbee Store 8 at SeoMyon, Busan / Pusan ]
previewed to open within September 2010 . this will be the second store in the Port City of Busan, formally spelled Pusan .
kinda goes-with-the-flow, for the old fashion mecca (70’s ~ 80’s) used to be down South in NanPoDong and GwangBokDong where Frisbee already has a store, and since the trend spot moved up North to Central Busan / Pusan over the Millennium, this is where they will be opening their second Busan / Pusan store . I presume will be just South of SeoMyun Subway Station .
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[ Apple Product Support at Frisbee Stores in South Korea ]
all open Monday to Friday 11am ~ 7pm and off Lunch 12:30 ~ 1:30, at
MyungDong Branch : on the 3rd Floor, Tel.02-318-7210
HongDae Branch : on the 3rd Floor, Tel.02-323-1763
KangNam Branch : on the UnderGround Floor, Tel.02-532-6547
Busan Branch : on the 3rd Floor, Tel.051-245-1037
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This MyeongDong Branch has since relocated just across the Street and another block North, so Comments are closed for this Post :
2010.9.11 Korean Apple Premium ReSeller Frisbee MyeongDong Main Store MOVED ≫LiNK≪
and~ the adventure continues onto the Milky Way, with Korea Tech BLog
i want to know how to buy apple i phone in seoul?
if you not mind can u help me to find it?and the price for apple I phone 3 gs 16 GB
thx
1. no, iPhone has NOT arrived yet, although it is rumoured to have cleared FCC regulations for sale in South Korea through KT Telecommunications Carrier .
2. but iPod Touch (iPhone WITHOUT phone capability) has been available in South Korea a few months after each respective iPhone versions, and iPod Touch 3G begins selling end of THIS month !!!
3. the best place to buy any kind of electronics with the MOST competitive price in South Korea is On-Line Shopping Malls . most people use “price-comparison sites” before deciding WHERE to purchase .
4. iPod Touch 3G 32GB discounts at W450,000 and 64GB at W600,000 today ~
Hi! I’m planning to buy an iPod Touch here in Seoul, are the prices in Frisbee the same in the online Apple Store? If I buy an iPod in Frisbee, will there be any tax added to the published price?
1. first-off : understand – as I have mentioned – Apple Stores INCLUDING Frisbees are NOT directly-run counterparts you find in gigantic glass-cube buildings in other major metropolis . meaning : a solid-rule do NOT apply as they do as they see fit, loosely abiding by their contract with Apple HQ.
2. therefore although Frisbee prices and online Apple Store prices are supposed to be be the same, you should check out yourself (beep~) -_-
3. one thing for sure is that independent on-line store abound in Cyber-South Korea IS cheaper IF they carry the items allowed by Apple OR imported by themselves .
4. another place of bargain AND worthy of mention is a handful of /very/ active Apple-specific consumer communities (mostly on Daum AND Naver) on-line, where they have endless used-items sales – you will need a Korean friend to log-on with you on these .
Hey KoreaTech,
i am thinking of buying a mac. I am kinda nervous about the fact that you said that the stores in Korea are private retailers that are loosely abiding by the protocol of apple HQ. Does that mean that i would have to worry about the warranty on the mac? Also i was wondering if the warranty is valid internationally since i am not sure about whether or not i will be heading back to Canada by the end of the year. Would it be better for me to just by the Mac from Canada and ask a friend to bring it for me?
thanks in advance for your advice.
although belated for a now-advanced tech nation,
(just imagine the iPhone took over TWO years to be officially imported
beginning late 2009 – that’s a long ~ time for a nation
where full movies are downloaded in TWO minutes and most on-line orders
delivered onto your doorsteps the NEXT day)
South Korea has leaped on Apple-related products AND service
towards the second half of the first decade in the Millennium .
aside from accessories which still is a tad cheaper
on the myriad of independent on-line shopping malls,
computers AND laptops from either Apple Korea’s official On-Line Store
OR one of the few local Frisbee outlets would ensure World-Wide support .
hey seoul tech guy… whoever you are. i have a big problem and am hopeful that you may be able to offer some insight. i have been having some trouble with my mac – neither of my usb ports are working, which totally sucks – and i want to take it somewhere to have it looked at. i am worried that i am going to have a hard time finding someone who speaks english fluently at any of the apple (or, ‘frisbee’) stores. have you had a particularly good experience at any specific store with staff members that spoke good english. i just want to feel comfortable and trust that they understand my concerns before i go leaving my computer with them.
if you had your computer for a while, this is the first sign of old age .
also USB ports are the first component on a mainboard/motherboard to go, when hardware system gets unstable .
but again this is a cheap part, so manual labour would be the factor .
English-wise it depends on which Frisbee Store you are close to, but if you would opt.for either downtown MyongDong OR KangNam Branch, I might drop by on afternoons .
Where’s spris located at??
hi, my macbook pro right fan just died, do you think at fresbie I can get it repaired? Do you know were can I go?
i am bangladeshi but now live in korea.I want to buy ipod nano.I c’nt understand of this address.Pls give me apple store address in seoul.Thx
Hi there
My Apple MacBook Pro is sick. Where can I take it for an examination in Busan? Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
hi
plz write to me adress Frisbee ( store macbook pro in seoul )
thankz
Hi,
I want to know what will be final price of apple mac book pro.
2.0GHz Intel Core i7
4GB 1333MHz RAM
500GB 5400rpm1
Intel HD Graphics 300
15″ screen
500 GB harddisk
+ wireless mouse
please let me know the price.
Thank u..
Do you know the closest location of these to the Lantern festival going on now in Seoul? And do they have english speaking employees?
the Lantern Festival is going on at a former ditch-turned-fancy-stream called Cheon-Gae-Cheon
running West-to-East along the oldest downtown district in the Capital of Seoul .
meaning you have many choices, most-Official among which are :
1. at the beginning West-point of Cheon-Gae-Cheon stream, North-ward between Kyobo Building housing the largest English bookstore AND the American Embassy – is the Olleh Square at the first florr of KT Building,
2. few blocks South at the center of Myung-Dong is the very Frisbee Store mentioned on this post,
where in the most-popular of iT stores in Apple, you will surely find a young clerk eager to try out English 😉
Good Luck and I envy your nice apartment by the Mexican Gulf 😉
you can re-Live a similar experience in Korea in one of the Beach-Front motels along KwangAnRi Beach
in the Southern-most port city of Busan or Pusan .
dear sir/madam.
accept my warm greetings.
i would like to buy. ulocked iphone 4s .
could you kindly inform the price of 16gb n 32gb and location of store.
Wow that looks so awesome! The highest Apple store that I’ve seen is the one here in Chicago with two floors, but I don’t think that anybody really can go up to the second floor.
Apple stores are truly a work of art. I could spend like hours and hours in one with 5 floors.
Greetings, Apple Contender Chicago but go to a Korea Town near you and imagine an Apple Store there .
the reality won’t be much different for although Korea has much developed
a large populace thriving in a small land-mass .. these Apple Store wanna-be’s take only a fraction of land-space compared to the REAL Apple Store blocks
and I am sure all the floors in South Korea added couldn’t match the ground-floor of a full-fledged American Apple Store .
if you are a being that can wonder around days in an electronics building block um like me,
better opt for one of the two Yodobashi Camera buildings in neighboring Japan 😉
now these take up more real estate property than the largest Apple Store and go 8 floors up with with stationeries, book-store and restaurants on top “V”
Hey, just wondering if you know of an apple service center I could get in touch with to get a price for updating my macbook pro? I want to increase the memory and hard drive. Any information would be awesome. Thanks!
M
again, mentioning where you are should get better replies
but know getting the basic upgrades at an Apple-contracted store or support center is much more expensive than independent vendors who would install for you
or better price yet On-Line to get the appropriate tool and do it yourself
– the “concensus” in South Korea concerning validity of warranty only excludes those specific parts installed yourself, meaning : it is pretty loose .
Apple Support Centers are listed at their WebSite, in Korean – changing much in the Capital of Seoul so no way I can list them here .
larger vendors in the Capital are concentrated at lower floors of Seon-in Building at the East end of YongSan Electronic Market
and upper floors of TechnoMart Building at Eastern Seoul
– all listed on my Electronics District Page on the top menu, Good Luck !
Hello. Where in Seoul I can buy: ipad3 64gb 4g !?
12.7.2 PLEASE NOTE THIS POPULAR POST IS A GOOD 3 1/2 YEARS OLD – THANK YOU
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Apple scene is evolving F-A-S-T in South Korea, although mostly in the Capital of Seoul, and overtly concentrated in popular intersection
where there are now 3~4 apple Premium Resellers on a major hub while none in even concentrated areas of other cities
this historical Apple Premium Reseller HeadQuarters since has moved across the street and other Premium Resellers and/branches are challenging in size, still this remains de-facto distributing point for South Korea in introducing the recent NEW iPad 3
I have a comment about this guy from whom I bought an Ipad about 4 months ago. Never got his name but he is supposed to be a Korean raised in China (more of a chinese than Korean ) and a few years in Vancouver ( bad english ) . He seemed to own the frisbee store with his Hyong (older brother) , since they both had a really nasty attitude towards my person (no wonder why no one buys anything in that place) . Also the cashier had a nasty attitude , trying to make me feel less than them (they seemed to try to make me not buy ) . As a customer I will not buy anything from this store again while these three are still working there. The only reason why I bought the Ipad , is because I really like apple products. I have several of them and by the way , I paid cash.
I hope this comment goes to the public or reaches the real owners if the owners are not these three .
I am a 38 year old South Korean Expat , who was raised in several countries so my Korean ways are not complete (I speak very good spanish and very good english , also fluent in Korean ) and did not know how to handle these youngsters in their 20’s . The other shorter people working in the frisbee store seemed to be very helpful and wanting to sell their products.
COMMENT FOR THIS POST IS CLOSED
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so Please refer to September 2010 Post about their NEW location – Thank You