Kitty Cafe

In Hongdae, a young,hipster place that comes alive after dark, there is a place for those of us who love kitty cats but can not have one as a pet.  Not because our landlord forbids it (our landlord is a paragon of virtue!) but because we are both allergic to cats, as well as dogs and horses, so no horses in the house either.

Up the stairs we go, into a closet between glass doors where we exchange our shoes for slippers, get our hands squirted with anti-bacterial gel, and enter the most cheerful little coffee house you will ever see.  For a rather expensive beverage and an inexpensive dish of soft morsels, we are let loose to spend some quality time with a bevy of kitty cats.

We see them sleeping and lounging and hanging and running and yawning and licking and scratching eating.  They sometimes come to be stroked or played with but to be honest they mostly come for the food.

There are humidifiers dotted around no doubt to remove the static that would wreak havoc between cat fur and Seoul's dry, cold air.  soem cats are friendlier than others, and we've been told not to stroke certain cats as they tend to scratch!  There is a huge vaariety of breeds, colours, ages and personalities, and we spent an hour cajoling and exhorting and thrilling to touch, scritch and nuzzle animals that are no doubt so overstimulated that they do not purr.  In fact most of them just sleep, and they resemble fluffy pillows dotted about the place.

Oddly enough, the cafe does not smell of cat at all and we wondered where they went to 'do their business'.  Thankfully, that is one element of kitty care that we did not feel the urge to do. 

Other patrons were mostly young Koreans, many on dates (and many in matching clothing, a romantic Korean exercise!). Some come on their own and just sit working on their laptops or reading, seemingly oblivious to the felines in the room, but perhaps they are students homesick for their pets miles away.