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Girls Day Out - Hello Kitty Café, Cats Living Here & Thanks Nature Café!

12/31/2012

And the snow, snow, snow came down, down, down and girlfriend started singing..
(I think I'm clever and that is all that matters.)
Maybe she wasn't singing, maybe she was freezing.
Either way we bundled up and head out to the Hondage area for a little Mother/Daughter fun!

The first stop on our list was the Hello Kitty Café!
I've read about this place for years and really couldn't wait to go to the Hello Kitty Café. (Girl just came along for the ride. She is a good daughter.) Not that I am a huge Hello Kitty fan, but because it is a HELLO KITTY CAFE. I mean Hello Kitty, whose real name is Kitty White was 'born' in Japan in 1974 and she is going stronger than ever here in Korea. Not only are there 4 or 5 Hello Kitty Cafés here in the Seoul area, but you can find Hello Kitty on everything! Pens, pencils, erasers, backpacks, purses, clothes, mugs, key chains phone covers, and just about anything else you can imagine! I had to see what was so fantastic about the Hello Kitty Café. The entrance is cute enough.

Here we go!

My first impression was that of disappointment.
I was expecting a 'sit down' dining experience.
The Hello Kitty Café is more of a 'coffee shop'.
You enter and the counter is right in front of you.
You place your order at the counter.
They were out of all the super cute Hello Kitty cakes I had read so much about. They young lady behind the counter said you have to come early to get the cakes, even though the store had only been open for 2 hours when we arrived.
Humm.
Girl and I just ordered hot chocolate and coffee.

All those empty plates on the top shelf are the 'sold out plates'. Grrrr...

We took our buzzer and headed upstairs to look for a seat.

While we were waiting for our drinks we explored the place a little.
The Hello Kitty décor was cute and everywhere.

After about 10 minuets our buzzer FINALLY went off.
How cute are these drinks?!

After one sip Girl said, "This isn't hot chocolate, this is warm chocolate."
She was correct. Warm chocolate and coffee.

When we picked up our drinks we ordered a waffle. Koreans are CRAZY about waffles. They don't eat them for dinner, they eat them for dessert. True story. (It only took about 5 minutes to get the waffle which was a HUGE improvement from the coffee.)

As we were leaving the Hello Kitty Café these two guys caught my eye. They were sitting in the Hello Kitty Café with their computers spread out across the table and they were working. IN THE HELLO KITTY CAFE. If we were in the states I probably would have called the police. I meant that is just weird. But who knows, maybe they are the owners. :o)

Pros:
Ridiculously cute!
Prices were pretty average for Seoul.
They deliver on Hello Kitty.
If you have a little girl that loves Hello Kitty, she will LOVE this place.

Cons:
It took a long time to get our drinks.
Drinks were warm, not hot.
Restaurant was dirty.
They were out of Hello Kitty cakes 2 hours after opening.

I can now say I have been there, done that and don't feel the need to every do it again.

Next up, "Cats Living Here" café!

Girl was super excited about the Cat Cafe!
I forgot she had never been to a cat cafe....remember her birthday?
Cat Living was about the same as the Cat Cafe in Myeongdong - 8,000 won for me, 7,000 won for Girl. Plus you get a FREE drink - more coffee and hot chocolate :o)

However the rules at this cat cafe were way more fun to read!

Don't take my picture with a flash! NO.

Please don't pull my tail. If you do, I will cry.

If you push me hard on my tummy my eyes might pop out of my head.

Do not feed hotdogs, hamburgers, packaged foods or fish to me. I would love it, but the mean owners say no.

Don't drip nasty fluids from your hand while I lean against the wall. I will not like that.

We are not Yin & Yang, don't pretend we are.

If you let your baby pull my head off and poke me in the eye I will put them in the sink and wash them like clothes.

Girl followed all the rules.

The cats at this café were SUPER LAZY. Girl tried and tried to get them to play, but they would have none of it.

We hung out with the cats for about a hour before heading out to our next adventure....

Thanks Nature Café
No REALLY that is the name of this place.
Thanks Nature Café.
This place is a SHEEP CAFE.
Sheep, as in bahhh, bahhh....
SERIOUSLY, SHEEP.
Are you as shocked as I am?
No?
You should be.

At least the sheep were not INSIDE the café roaming around. They were in a little enclosure outside. During the summer months they open the doors to the café so you can have more of an 'outdoorsy, sheepy' experience.

They left their food container outside near the pin so Girl started helping herself.
The sheep were super nice.
Of course girl now wants one as a pet.

In between stops we did a little shopping, people watching and we took a few pictures for the "Not Quite Right" portion of the blog. You will have to wait and see what they are, but for now we leave you with these....

This girl did not get the memo that it is the middle of WINTER!! Temps are in the 20's! Hello. You know she was freezing.

I tried to get Girl to go check on the discolored Garfield to see what was wrong with him, but she was afraid. :o)
We really thought his pink boots were a nice touch.

This is what we were walking on for most of the day. Sheets of ice.

To get there by subway take line 2 to the Hongik University Station go out Exit 9 walk straight then turn left at the big street. Walk for a little while, you will pass Taco Bell on your right and then you will see a Starbucks Coffee shop on the left - turn right at this street go to the next street, alley and turn right walk until you see the street fork off to the left and go up a hill - take this hill - you should see Hello Kitty Café on left - about 2 stores past the Hello Kitty Café is the Cats Living here Café.

To get to Thanks Natural Café - continue on the street with Taco Bell and Starbucks. Cross over to the left side of the street. You will see a long shopping center with 2 floors. Thanks Nature Café is on the far end bottom corner.

Have fun!

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A Birthday Adventure Like No Other

12/5/2012

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You guys got the memo a long time ago. We LIKE birthdays in our house. One could even say we LOVE birthdays in our house - heck one could even go as far as saying we are cuckoo for birthdays in our house! Girl's 11th birthday was no different. From the moment she heard that Hubby and I stumbled upon a Cat Café she knew this is where she wanted to spend her 11th birthday and who am I to say no? (Plus it is WAY EASIER than some of the home parties we throw!) Girl was allowed to bring 4 friends with her on this adventure as I wasn't sure I could handle more than 5 of them on the streets of Seoul.

The girls arrived to our house at 9AM on a Sunday morning back in October. I had a plan. Cat Café, lunch, a little shopping, doctor fish and then back home for a little birthday cake! Sounds like a good plan - right? Well it is good until you arrive at the Cat Café & realize they are CLOSED on Sundays!! (Yes, I checked before we went, I knew they opened at 10AM, but I guess my Konglish isn't as good as I thought because I didn't get the "we are closed on Sunday" memo.)

So THIS is as close as my girl got to playing with the sweet little kitties.
But don't worry, this EPIC FAIL is going to be restored....we still have doctor fish, lunch and maybe one of the other 5 Cat Cafés in Myeongdong will be open. Failure is NOT an option.
Plus, the stop at Dunkin' Donuts helped ease the pain a *tiny* bit.

On our quest to find another Doctor Fish these sweet young Korean college students wanted us to take a survey for their English class.

Now, I had read in multiple blogs about the Dr. Fish in Myeongdong - the only problem I ran into was that NOT ONE single person could give the location of this mysterious Dr. Fish. Many places said to look up and you will find it...it is on the 2nd or 3rd floor of a building. I was confidant in my ability to find it - maybe a little too confident. Finally we stopped at the Global Center to ask for directions. This is where we were informed that the Doctor Fish I was looking for closed a few months ago, (EPIC FAIL #2 of the day) but not to worry there were a couple of other locations in Myeongdong for Dr. Fish. At that point I ask if any of the Cat Cafés were open on Sunday - the answer was shocking - out of the 5 Cat Cafés in Myeongdong NONE of them open on Sunday. I guess cat's need their rest. I was informed that the Dog Café opens at noon. You should have heard the squeals that came from the 5 girls in my group. (Epic fail restored!)

Since we had a little time to kill and the girls were hungry they decided they wanted to eat street food instead of going to a sit down restaurant. French fry corn dogs on a stick it is!

As we were walking and eating we stumbled upon The Foot Shop and there was a sign that said "Dr. Fish" - we went in. The girls were SO EXCITED until the guy told me it was going to be 20,000 won PER PERSON!! WHAT?!?! It is typically 2 or 3,000 won per person. That is when I realized he was going to give them all foot massages & Dr. Fish. This is a POSH place, not a place to bring five 11 year old squealing girls. This could have been Epic fail #3, but I pleaded and bargained with him and finally got them all in for 20,000 won but he said they need to be 'quiet' - BAHAHAHAHA!! Did he not see that there are 5 young girls chomping at the bit to stick their feet in a tub of little fishies nibbling at their feet?!?! I mean this tickles like you cannot believe - So like any good mom would do, I agreed anyway knowing I could not hold up to my end of the bargain. I mean come on this was for the greater good of birthday girls everywhere!

And as you can see - the 'quiet' part really worked:

Next up, Dog Café!

So the dog café is pretty similar to the Cat Café except MUCH louder and much more stinky.
The entry fee is an 8,000 won drink.
The girls had hot chocolate and I had a latte.
The girls had a ball playing with the dogs.
I personally didn't even want to sit down because I saw a dog pee on the leg of a table, another one pee on the leg of a chair, I saw a dog poop on the floor. I was gagging! Now the staff was amazing and had very sharp eyes because each time a dog went potty there was a staff member cleaning it up within seconds, but really, this place wasn't for me. However I endured it since the girls were having SO MUCH fun.

By this time the streets of Myeongdong were getting pretty crowded so I had the girls form a human chain where we walked and sang to our next destination. SO MUCH FUN.

Hello ice cream! Yes we will have a foot long ice cream thank you!

These little characters were all over the place! I'm not sure what this one was advertising.

But this one is advertising a Nintendo gaming room!! How fun is that, I was up for it, but the girls decided against it - they thought this would be better for one of the boys birthday parties.

Finally after several hours 5 happy girls are back on the subway heading home to have a little birthday cake.

OH BUT WAIT...Girl wanted to stop at 7-11 and have her friends try one of our favorite Korean snacks - rice triangles filled with bulgogi and wrapped in seaweed. As you can see a couple of them were not thrilled with our favorite Korean snack, but all agree that the cider is good.

Back at home we all put on our new socks....

And sang Happy Birthday to one special girl!

So even though this party could have been a complete failure, we persevered and we ended up having a total ball!
Happy 11th birthday my sweet angel!

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Cat Cafe!

10/7/2012

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Last week Hubby and I celebrated 18 years of marriage! EIGHTEEN YEARS. Can you believe that? I don't feel old enough to have been married for 18 years! We have PCSed 11 times, lived in 14 home, 6 states, 5 countries, but only 2 of them together, 4 deployments and 4 kids. (AND Hubby was home for EVERY BIRTH - most military familes can't say that!) we have had good times, bad times and all sorts of times in between. We are blessed beyond measure.

On our anniversary Hubby surprised me with a little anniversary breakfast cake - he is the BEST!

We are celebrating our anniversary in style this year with a trip to Cambodia in a couple of weeks, but we couldn't overlook the day all together, so we headed out to Myeongdong just to get out when we happened upon this:

A CAT CAFE! No, you don't eat cat - you go there to love on cats. Really! I'm not kidding! A cafe full of cats!! There are cats everywhere - on tables, on chairs, on counters, up high, down low - everywhere you turn there are CATS!!

In Korea most people don't have pets for one reason or another, so going to a cat cafe (they also have dog cafes here!) is a great option for those cat lovers.

When venturing out to a cat cafe there are rules you must abide by:

Upon entering you must take your shoes off and replace them with rubber slippers provided by the cafe and you must disinfect your hands with sanitizer so you don't bring nasty germs in.

Do not pick up the cats, they can sit in your lap~ but they have to climb into your lap on their own

Do not wake sleeping cats

No flash photography

Do not disturb the kitties if they are eating

If the cat has a colored collar on he is young or is not feeling well

Hubby feeding a kitty

There are fuzzy cats, fluffy cats, short hair cats, long hair cats, and NAKED CATS!

You can buy 'special' food to feed the cats.....

This cat thinks he would like a little drink ~

Checking Facebook while hanging out with cats.

The young lady in the background is taking a nap while her friend is just hanging out with his favorite kitty.

The entry fee to the Cat Cafe is 8,000 won, but that includes a free drink. I wish I could tell you how to get here, but I cannot - but I did take this picture with the phone number on it! Maybe it will help!

We finished our afternoon stroll in Myeongdong with a little street food.....

Fried potatoes on a stick.

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“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you
did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

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Hi, I'm Trish, the writer, creator and photographer of this blog. I started this blog for 2 reasons, 1 - When I found out we were moving to Korea back in 2008 I was a little freaked out and started scouring the internet for information on Korea. At that time there wasn't much out there so I am doing my part in helping families across the world not be so freaked out when it comes time to move to Korea. The 2nd reason I started this blog was to help stay connected to family members back in the states. Today it is so much more that.
I hope you enjoy our journey.

Are you moving to Korea? Do you have questions, concerns? Are you freaking out? Freak out no further - click the button to ask a question. I'll do my best to answer open and honestly.

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Girls Day Out - Hello Kitty Café, Cats Living Here & Thanks Nature Café!

A Birthday Adventure Like No Other

Cat Cafe!

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