spending some time with our (line) friends

so while we were standing in line waiting to enter the BTS exhibition, the bean was eyeing other people's shirts and bags and other merchandise they were carrying around.  she mentioned that there was a shop called the line friends store, but that it seemed like they were only in korea and NYC.  while she was distracted looking at all of the displays in the exhibit, i whipped out my phone to ask my friend google for help.  and sure enough, there was a brand new line friends store right there in hollywood, across the street from hollywood & highland.  while we didn't have time to go that day (which would have been great since we were already really close by), i made a mental note to take her before school started.

i invited the old lady to join us one afternoon after she finished work for the day, and we hopped into the car and headed west without telling the bean where we were going.  she must have done some googling of her own though, because after we parked and made our way to the store she looked right at it and breathed a heavy fangirl sigh of happiness.  heh.

of course, the BTS music was on full blast in the store as soon as we walked in and she was singing along as she took it all in.  each band member has an animated character they created and the collection is referred to as BT21, which is a great way for them to make a crapton of cash selling not just band-themed stuff, but all sorts of stuff emblazoned with their animated persona as well.  along with a ton of merchandise, there were lots of photo ops and this was one place she didn't fight me on posing for pictures. 

she had a blast looking at all of the BT21-themed merchandise and immediately fell in love with this gigantic pillow:

there was all sorts of stuff from wireless phone chargers to water bottles to cordless fans to luggage tags to fuzzy pens to...well, you get it.

being on hollywood boulevard, there were stars on the floor bearing each character's name (i must have lost interest after the first four, because there are more):

 and of course, handprints and autographs in cement mounted on the wall.

 the giant tv monitor near the entrance played a video on loop of the guys at the store and doing those handprints.

these miniature figurine displays were super cute, but inexplicably not available for sale.

while she was browsing through the store, the bean somehow befriended another girl who was there solo and asked her to take a couple of pictures for her.  they ran around the store doing what turned into a full-on photo shoot, which was kind of amusing.  and then the girl insisted on buying some stuff for her as a thank you, which i tried unsuccessfully to politely decline.  she was so grateful to the bean for helping her out, and so i just left them to work it all out together.

meanwhile, the old lady and i giggled as we went through the store looking at everything else.  along with the BT21 stuff, there were some other characters by the line friends company there with their own lines of merchandise.

she decided to get some aggression out on that giant bear, and we couldn't stop laughing.

the bean finally said goodbye to her new friend and came over to take a picture too.

 i bought her a few things, and then we were finally outta there.

across the street, i had a moment of my own at the new-ish sanrio hollywood store.

 lots of merchandise here too, but i managed to get out of there without spending a dime.

 there was a small art exhibit in the back.

 and a small display of celebrity-worn items.

surprisingly, not too many photo ops here.  it's a pretty small store, though.

 thank you, goodbye.

we headed back out into the hollywood & highland complex to find something for dinner and ended up at our old standby...california pizza kitchen.  while we waited for a table we looked out at the hollywood sign off in the distance.

charming.

we had a nice, quiet dinner before heading back home and the bean was super thrilled to take home a big bag full of BTS stuff.  it was a nice evening spent together doing silly stuff, and isn't that just the best?