On Wednesday, July 5th, my new friends and I went cafe hopping in Hongdae using a list of places I made! We took the subway from Hanyang University and walked to the Pink Pool Cafe Stylenanda Seoul, where we took the escalators to the 4th floor and tried their vanilla latte, green tea latte, and peach ade. They were all delicious!! We got to look around the rest of the downstairs store at the clothes and makeup brands and test their perfume line.
Afterward, we walked ten minutes over to the Cat Cafe Jipssauiharu for abandoned cats. We got to sit with the cats and interact with different species we’d never seen before! One even climbed into my friend’s lap and sat there! Some were skittish but others just slept or played with their cat toys. Next, we went to the Samoyed Dog Cafe which I’d been planning for a month before my trip to Korea! The dogs were so beautiful and fluffy, and we were allowed to watch the trainer tell them to lay down, roll over, bark, as well as take pictures with guests! We got to give them treats and I wish we’d stayed a lot longer but the dogs had to be taken outside so we left after fifteen minutes. My best recommendation is to go earlier when they first open as it gets busy towards midday.
For lunch, we got chicken wraps at a kebab place and then went to the Harry Potter cafe, 943 Kings Cross. It was a fun atmosphere, but instead of the Butterbeer alcoholic drink I recommend the non-alcoholic version! The fruit Ade was delicious though and my friend loved the cheesecake. A nicely air-conditioned place to sit before we walked through the streets of Hongdae to get back to the subway line and head home to Hanyang University. I hope to go back to Hongdae and do more street shopping as there were tons of stalls and restaurants nearby, and tons of people!