Cat Café and Appleteen!

Today my friends and I went out to wander around and have some fun. We wandered around Sinchon (which is where Yonsei University is) and went to where we noticed a Cat Café was. We walked up to the 8^th floor and found out that it was open on Sundays! Hooray! We went inside, took our shoes off and put on the given house slippers, and bought a drink. The drink is only about $7 and is what lets you stay inside and be around the cats for a long time. I got iced chocolate (hot chocolate, but cold!) The inside of the café was so cute.

All of the walls had places for the cats to climb, even the ceilings! There were toys out for the cats to play with and small boxes for them to curl up in and sleep~ Food and water were always out for them too. They give out little rule cards to everyone who comes in while they wait for their drinks. They were the cutest things I’ve seen!

They had them in English and Korea, how clever of them~ When we picked a table, we didn’t notice that there was already a cat sleeping in one of the chairs!

When we got our drinks, he woke up a little to say hi, he was such a sweetie. He was really cute and had such beautiful eyes. He stayed around for a bit before he left to get some food, but we still had another cat close by.

This cat stayed in the window most of the time we were here. He didn’t really care for people to pet him, but he’d put up with us when we did. But he’d do some really strange things…

He stood like this for a while. He wasn’t going to the bathroom or anything, just standing and staring at something. Cats are weird. Soon after we had gotten our drinks, a woman who worked at the café came around and put some wet cat food on everyone’s hands. I guess this food really drives the cats crazy, because they all came running!

They really licked our hands dry, they wanted the treats so much. It was so cute, and tickled a lot.

We stayed for a while and I got some good pictures of some of the cats!

 

After visiting with the cats, we went to GrandMart to see if they had towels, which we couldn’t find, but they were having a going out of business sale. I looked around and found some Colonize hoodies, and instead of being almost $80 like usual they were only $35! I snagged two of them and we moved on down the street, stumbling upon a new music store. It’ll make it easier to buy MBLAQ’s new releases~ I picked up one CD, Spica’s “Painkiller”, because I absolutely love it and every other song on the album.

If you like Kpop I definitely recommend you check these girls out. They’ve got incredible vocal power! After finding this place, we decided to find somewhere to eat. We hadn’t eaten at all today and as we walked around mulling over all our options, we settled on Appleteen. I guess that it’s a restaurant started by Brian Joo, a singer here. I’m a fan of his music, but oh my gosh his restaurant was amazing! We settled on two dishes: shrimp “spicy” pasta and a ham/cherry tomato/mushroom pizza.

I loved eating here (even though it was a bit expensive) because they played great music, had lounge chairs at the table, and the food was absolutely to die for. As you can see, we loved it.

If you’re in Korea and can get to an Appleteen restaurant, go! Go, go, go! It’s delicious and the atmosphere is really calm! After the main course, we moved to a coffee house because I wanted to try a waffle. That’s right, a waffle. Most coffee places here have some really amazing looking waffles! The place we went was called Tomo Coffee.

It was so quaint and cute inside~ We ordered a fruit waffle and when it came…

Oh my gosh! It had chocolate and strawberry ice cream, banana, kiwi, orange, whipped cream…it was amazing! The waffle was warm and the ice cream was cold, so it made an amazing taste together! We ate it happily, then Sheetal had to separate with us to meet up with her roommate. Kristen and I walked around for a while, and…I bought more things ㅠㅠ I bought a lotion, a makeup thing, and a soap that’s said to make pores smaller. The thing on the right was a free gift! It was really fun! Surprisingly, I haven’t run out of money. Ha! I had a really fun day~

Ah, yesterday I met up with Woojin! I didn’t remember to take any pictures, I was having too much fun…but we had some chicken finally! It was so good…if you come to Korea, try their boneless chicken! We then moved to a much more Korean bar. Woojin ordered ddokboki for us and also Pineapple Soju. He wanted to let me try something that tasted less like alcohol (because I don’t like the taste of most alcoholic drinks…) and it was really great tasting! The orange wasn’t as good, but we also had grape and pineapple, and they were so great…it was really fun! We finally had to split because it takes a bit for Woojin to get home from Shinchon, but it was a really great evening. Woojin is really cute and fun! 오빠, you know that? ㅋㅋ

Tomorrow starts the third week of classes. Wow, time is starting to move faster…

Cell 6 Dinner Date

Tonight my cell group, Cell 6, had a dinner date! Our cell group is what group we were put into for Mentor’s Club. We haven’t yet had a gathering started by our mentor, but we all really wanted to get together and have some fun! So tonight at 6:30, we all gathered and headed to a Korean BBQ place just down the road from Yonsei.

There were 13 of us that they managed to squeeze into tables. They pushed all the tables along a back wall together and we all could sit together, which was really nice. It was an all you can eat place, so we all showed up really hungry. It was a typical BBQ place: grills in the middle with jugs of water.

The people on the outside part of the table got the meat and started to bring it back in waves to the rest of us trapped in the middle. We got some side dishes and some onions/garlic/lettuce to put with our meat, and soon the table was packed with a bunch of different plates.

Each table had a small grill, so it was easy for the three sections of us to all cook the meat and distribute it evenly. Our table had finished about four whole plates of different kinds of meats in less than 30 minutes…we were that hungry and it tasted that good. The best meat was definitely the bulgogi and the spicy pork. Something about the grilling style and doing it yourself made it crazy juicy and mouth-watering.

Our side of the table started off very modestly. We had a few rice pockets, some kimchi, and put our meat on the grill carefully: spicy pork all together, hotdogs together, bulgogi together, and the others neatly in place. After about the second plate of meat, we didn’t care so much. Everything tasted so good and we just wanted it cooked so we could eat it! We started off the meal before anyone ate with a shot of soju. 

We all clanked our glasses and I went in for the kill…and downed the whole shot glass in one drink. In Korea, they don’t tend to drink much from the bottle, especially with something as strong as soju. I’d never had it before, but always wanted to try it. The first shot wasn’t so bad; it actually tasted LESS awful than vodka, which was surprising to me. After about the second though, it didn't taste any different. It was the same “rubbing alcohol” flavor I’m used to tasting in drinks. Then came the interesting part…Reza (the guy sitting at our end who kept getting the meat) came back with two small octopi. 

All of us were kind of on the fence but then said “to hell with it”, and cooked them. I had a taste, and it wasn't something I was fond of much. It tastes like squid, which I also don’t care for.

By the end of the meal (about an hour and a half to two hours later) our table was filled to the brim with plates and bowls of all sorts. We were all stuffed and incredibly happy. After paying (it was only $150 or so for all 13 of us to have all you can eat) we headed to a Baskin Robbins, of course. We all walked around Sinchon for a while and then headed back to campus or apartments. It was a great evening out together, and I’m incredibly excited to do it again soon. I got lucky with my group, everyone is so wonderful and fun to talk to!

Cheonggyecheon Stream

Yesterday evening my friends Kristen, Sheetal, and I decided to head to Cheonggyecheon Stream and check it out. It’s a stream that goes for a many miles (I think at least 5?) and it’s right in the center of Seoul. It’s surrounded by nature, but also by the huge industrial buildings. We met up at six and went to a place called “Jun’s Grill”. Sheetal’s roommate works there, and she wanted to meet Kristen and I, so we stopped in.

It was so, so cute. Really small, but very earthy…there were plants and a small wall garden that lined the whole room. It was incredibly relaxing to eat there.

When it got darker, they turned the lights down a bit to give it a really calm mood, it was wonderful. Also, they had a café cat! It was so cute~

It had a little T-shirt and Overalls on. He was beautiful, and really loved the chew on the grass growing next to our table, haha. After we had eaten our meals, Sheetal’s roommate brought us out some wine on the house.

Since I’m not much of a drinker at all (and if I do drink, it’s never wine), I didn’t drink much of mine, but it was so nice of her to do that. Soon after, we left. Making our way to the subway, we saw a few guys rapping and singing, so we sat down and watched.

They were incredible. We sat through the end of their show and told them they were awesome, then went on our way. I don’t know if this is what subway stations look like everywhere else, but in Korea they’re really nice!

Anyway, so we finally made it to where we were headed, and they had some really huge buildings. One great thing about Korea is the mixture and blending of the old buildings and new buildings. The architecture of these new buildings is incredible.

They had a huge statue (which we called “The Unicorn” haha) that made it really easy to find where the stream was.

When you turned the opposite way of the statue, the stream began. It started at the top where a bunch of small fountains were located

Then it all ran down into a big waterfall.

At night, they use colored lights to illuminate the water in certain places and even put on small light shows. It was beautiful to see in the dark.

The stream ran under bridges and streets, with places to sit all along the trails to either side of the water. It was a very artistic area.

They had projections on the walls (all which were brightly colored), and I loved each one of them. At night, the buildings around the stream light up as well, adding to the entire feeling.

Everything was bright and colorful, but also calm and serene.  After walking for a while, we sat under a bridge to relax and just enjoy everything around us.

The water runs pretty quickly at this stream, despite being very shallow.

After a while of walking again, we decided to head home because two of us still had some homework to do. All in all, it was a pretty nice and relaxing weekend. Next weekend is the Yonsei/Korea University games! I’m really excited~