Afternoon in Seoul

I apologize in advance for this terrible highlight, something messed up the formatting when I tried to include Hangul letters.

Today I had a free afternoon to go about Seoul and do some exploring. Apparently it was also graduation for KU today because there were TONS of people on the sidewalks in KU caps and gowns with flowers and their parents. It was cool to see and it surprised me how big KU really is. 

My friend Shawn and I got lunch in Anam, I got my favorite Korean dish, tteokbokki, which is rice cakes in spicy red pepper sauce, this time with scallions and onions on top. This restaurant, along with a lot of others in the neighborhood, had a window that opened onto the street so you could just get it and go. A whole serving cost a whopping $2.40. Needless to say, I will be returning there very soon.

We then got on the subway in Anam to go to a cat cafe. The subway in Korea is really cool. It's like the NYC subway in that its cars have similar layouts, but also like the DC metro because it doesn't run 24 hours and is EXTREMELY clean. The cafe was 12 stops away so we tried to read as much Korean as possible whenever we stopped at a new station.

 I was an idiot and forgot to remember where the cat cafe was, so we wandered around the Hongik University area for about an hour before Shawn finally asked for directions. The area around Hongik University is like Korean Brooklyn, lots of weird tiny shops and street craft vendors. This makes sense because Hongik is the best art school in Korea.  

The cafe was fun but at the same time kinda weird. First thing, we had to take off our shoes and wear flip flops. We then had to put our jackets into cubbies so the cats wouldn't damage them by marking them (an actual warning). Then, when we walked in, the place smelled A LOT like cat pee. Strong cat pee. This was because none of the male cats were neutered, and there were like, 45 cats in this one place. Admission was less than 8 dollars and it came with a coffee or iced tea. For the amount of fun, it was totally worth it. Cats kept jumping on my shoulders and smelling my hair. It was pretty cute. A lot of Korean women were taking pictures of the huge white guy with a cat on his back. It turns out this wasn't even the same cat cafe we saw on the internet, so we'll have to return and go to that one.

On the way back to our dorms we found this place that sold big balls of ice cream cone covered in chocolate that you then put in a bag and hit with a hammer. We got one and were pleasantly surprised.

I can't wait to see even more of this city.