During my recent trips to Los Angeles, I did some shopping at various K-Pop stores and special pop-ups and I wanted to share what I got!
There are three stores that we visited that I bought stuff from, so I’ll show each haul based on the store.
Choice Music
This was the best place to buy albums from hands down. It is actually split between 2 storefronts, with one being solely albums and the other being posters and other paraphernalia. This place is my biggest haul of the three so let’s get to it.
I am more of a boy group stan, but I ended up only buying girl group albums for myself except for J-Hope’s Jack in the Box. But I’ve had a list of albums I’ve wanted to buy so I went off of that, giving me mostly girl groups. I needed to catch up on my purple kiss collection since they are a favorite group of mine. As for the other three, those are all favorite albums of mine.
I also got a lot of freebies for all of my purchases which included the above photocards and postcards. I also got four posters (3 BTS and 1 Stray Kids) for free which are still rolled up at the moment. So I seriously left with a horde of K-Pop merchandise.
K-Pop Music Town
This particular store is well-stocked with anything and everything a K-pop fan would want. Lightsticks, albums, attire, accessories, and so much more are all available. The downside of this is that if you are looking for specifics, they may not have it. As was the case for me because I was looking specifically for ATEEZ albums during this trip and they only had one I wanted. They did also have some enamel pins of lightsticks, and I am a pin collector so I grabbed a couple for some favorite groups.
BTS POP-UP: Space of BTS
I honestly have mixed feelings about this pop-up. While it is cool to have, all the best merchandise sold when they initially opened at the start of May. So when I went at the end of May, there wasn’t a whole lot that I was really excited about. I still bought my fair share, although some were gifts for a friend. The one item I was excited they had in my size is the Black Swan t-shirt that was first released at the Map of the Soul Pop-Up a couple of years ago. I really loved it but couldn’t get it in my size, so I am very happy I got it. I also got the Space for BTS exclusive LA logo shirt, a purple ON shirt, and a Yet to Come in Busan shirt. I also got the tote bag freebie since I spent a lot of money (the most out of the three easily).
Overall, money was definitely spent but I’m happy to add to my ever-growing K-Pop collection, especially the albums. And it was nice to shop in person since I normally only order things online. I definitely recommend Choice Music for albums since their selection was so big and diverse.
Do you collect any K-Pop merch? Tell me about it with a comment!
