3 Cat Cafes, and a Dog Cafe in Seoul

YLSNE: There's a university in Suwon (South Korea) with oddly-Grecian architecture. We had the pleasure of passing Kyung Hee University by bus, and I managed to snap a quick picture..

So! We visited three cat cafes, and one dog cafe, yes, on our trip! I never thought we would go for so many. We wanted to go for one, yes, and after that we liked it so much we went for the others. :)

Entry is 8000 krw (about $8), which gets you unlimited time with the kitties/doggies, and also one drink. Weirdly enough, basically all the drinks tasted the same. Super sweet. (We ordered matcha latte and chocolate latte at 3 of the 4 places.) Maybe they use the same supplier?? Either way.

The only place I thought was stinky was the second cat cafe, Myeongdong Godabang. Smelled like cat pee. D: Niisama didn't notice it, however, so I guess it depends on how sensitive your nose is. I'm happy to say, though, that their sister store in Gangnam is absolutely wonderful. ^^ The dog cafe didn't smell particularly doggy! Unfortunately, their dogs weren't really toilet-trained. However, staff were quick to clean up with multipurpose cleaners.

Enough of that! On with the catpix!

Note: We wanted to go to lilycat, which was supposedly a combined board game/cat cafe. I was told by Myeongdong Tourist Information that they were closed down. :( Myeongdong still has Monaco, a board game cafe which we peered into but didn't enter, and also two cat cafes.

(Myeongdong) Cat Playground (?) 37-14 Myeong-dong 8-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul
Directions: Sorry, can't really remember. XD Found the cat mascot advertising, followed the directions.

This was a wonderful, calm place with nice owners. They had a lot of heated mats and kotatsu, and the cats looked fairly comfortable and relaxed. However, some of them were definitely overweight... D: I guess free feeding + greedy cats is no good. (The other two cat cafes also free fed, btw.) There was a wide variety of cats, and the room was fairly spacious.

(Myeongdong) Godabang 8-5 Myeongdong 8-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Directions: Line 4 at Myeongdong station, exit 6. Go straight down to the main road until you see the Lacoste Store. Turn left and turn right at the alley that you see. Walk a little more and it's located on your right.

Sadly, this place smelled like cat pee to me. :( My partner thought it was alright, though, but I couldn't stay there long. I usually don't have a sensitive nose, so not sure what happened here. The cats seemed a bit stressed to me, or maybe it was me being stressed from the smell.. and yes! These two cat cafes are both in the same area. There's a dog cafe here in Myeongdong too. :)

(Gangnam) Godabang
Directions: Gangnam station exit 10, very close (more directions)

I was a bit leery of going to another Godabang after the cat-pee-smell of the last Godabang (in Myeongdong), but this one was superb! It was also the easiest to find/access from a Google search, since we weren't planning to go to the Hongdae area. ^^" Both Godabang aren't very large, and don't really feel like they have many active cats running around the place. But the Gangnam one has a relaxed feel. There was a circle of girls sitting on the large rug in the middle of the room with cats on their laps! It took a while for the circle to disperse and for me to intercept and nab the attentions of a beautiful, beautiful cat (or two). Funny enough, there was a guy at the end when I got up to leave who had three cats on his lap. XD All sleeping on top of the other. Awww. But having a sleeping, warm cat on your lap is an awesome feeling. Cat gets a heated lap to sleep on, we get nice cat on lap. Win-win!


 Now for the dog cafe. :) There were three pugs who ran around and seemed pretty mischievous. (One peed on niisama..) The dachshunds were sweet; when I sat down, one ran over and occupied my lap. ^^ It felt a little like cheating on my two dogs at home, haha! A bulldog was affectionate and snuffled my hip. Ticklish. :) I think I prefer the cat cafe, since non-toilet-trained dogs makes me feel a bit anxious. I guess it's not easy with so many dogs...but couldn't they have tried training pads? Oh well. We actually tried to get to this place three times. The first time, we were too late (they close at 10pm or something); we walked all the way up the stairs to the fourth floor to find it locked. :/ Fairly sure that we passed the employee on the third floor, they could have said something...second time it was closed. A notice on the first floor indicated they might have gone on a trip to the dog park, which is nice. We finally got in on the third time, though.

If you don't feel like climbing stairs up four levels to see if they're open, just have a look at the pink sign outside. If it's lit, they're open. (I think.)

Love Hotels in Seoul - Overview

YLSNE: Man, it's been ages since I did this! Let's see. Seoul is really beautiful in autumn. :)

Just came back from my trip to Seoul! The last time I was there was about ten years ago. It's beautiful in autumn.

When I was planning my trip to Seoul, I was looking at accommodation, and shocked by the apparent value for money of 'love hotels', compared to old-looking 'tourist hotels'. Unfortunately, (or fortunately?) most love hotels in Seoul are decorated in 'modern' rather than 'holy what is this'. (a.k.a Chezlee Palace, which sadly seems to be closed or something)  I had no problem with the concept of love hotels, as long as they're clean. And I'd be staying with my boyfriend anyway, so lack of privacy wasn't an issue. So, here's the run down of my experience!

To start with, S. Korean customs will look at you weirdly if you don't put down a proper address on your entry card, so just pick a random hotel you'll be trying and write their address down. ^^"

Putting your luggage away during the day
Lockers were available in most stations. We had one standard-sized carry on, and one small carry on luggage. Both of them fit together into the biggest-sized locker, and the small carry-on fit in a medium-sized locker.

Most stations in Seoul have lockers. Some are within the station, through the ticket gantry, and some are outside the station. All of those we used had English (and Chinese and Japanese options?) so it was no problem to use. They were all extremely easy to use! I'm not sure what people are saying about them being hard to use. I feel like they might have upgraded the software on them so they're standard, lol. Stations on lines 5-8 have some info on whether they have lockers; we've collated those, and added a few others that we visited and noticed lockers at.

We tried four hotels in total.
...and visited eleven. After four nights, we settled on one of them, and stayed there for the remainder of our trip. That was pretty much the plan, and also we were getting tired of some of the superhard beds we slept on. D:

Hotel Pop
...is also listed on Agoda for about $70/night. We got the room for 50000krw (about $50) a night, only catch is we have to check out by 12 noon each day, and head back after 7pm to get a room. It kinda depends who you talk to. The tall guy who speaks English and the older woman both say no reservations at the desk, and that the rooms are first-come-first-served. The younger woman said otherwise, though, and may have reserved a room for us the day we went to Everland. Language barrier, not really sure. If we didn't have a room that night we would have just looked around. XD If the front desk had said firmly no, we might have booked a room on Agoda. For the other days, it wasn't too hard to pop by at about 7pm or 7.30pm before heading off for dinner. Hotel Pop actually has two entrances; one of them is somewhat darker and in-the-alley than the other one. It also branches off so you could get into Hotel Pop 2 or 3 via the same passageway too.

Hotel Pop's Lobby

Staying in Jongno
We actually really liked the area! Some people hated it, from reviews, lol. It's central in terms of train line; Jongno-3-ga is on lines 1, 3 and 5. Hotel Pop was minutes away from train station exits, and the main road where you could catch bus 143 (or 103, SUPPOSEDLY, but the bus driver said no no so we'll never know) to Myeongdong. It comes insanely often. (Guide says every 7 mins.) It's neon and there are lots of love hotels in the area, yes, but we never felt like we were in danger. And at night there are plenty of street vendors out in force. Especially our favourite Fried Chicken uncle; buy a container of delicious, delicious Korean fried chicken for just 3000 won. And if you want to feel hip, Insadong is a short walk away.

Good Stuff

• All the rooms we stayed at were clean. 
• Large TVs. (42-inchers) Some hotels have cable subscriptions (Sky Petpark! 24 hours of cute pets!) but others didn't.
• Wifi, often room-specific wifi.
• One to two computers (PC/laptop) available for use.
• Sometimes, they're themed. We stayed in a Hello Kitty room, the same hotel also had a Simpsons room.
• Good prices. A night in a love hotel costs around 30kw (30000 korean won)-90kw, depending on the day. (Friday and Saturday nights are typically more expensive.)  And, of course, the room. But if all you're looking for is a place to bunk in after a day of touristing, we spent an average of about 55kw over our stay.
• Free toiletries! (that you may have to ask for.) Unless your hotel is cheapo, then they may charge 1000 won for it. >.> What niisama charmingly called a 'toilet pack' (he was going for 'toiletries') contained, in individual packs - 2 condoms (hur), 2 toothbrushes/toothpaste, BB cream, facial wash, toner, disposable shaver, shaving cream, shower sponge, bubble bath, a 'ladies set' (hair tie, two cotton pads, a few cotton buds). Outside of the individual packs, there were large bottles of toner and moisturiser (split into male/female use). May vary depending on hotel.
• You get two robes to wear, though they may be a bit ratty.
• You also get the use of the facilities, which generally include kettle (didn't use), hair dryer, fridge. Stuff in fridge is free. Usually has 2 bottles of water, 2 canned drinks. (sometimes the canned drinks taste weird..)
• Some have jacuzzis (may not be operational/may look so dodgy you don't want to operate it), some/quite a few have rain showers. I love rain showers.
• Some free stuff in lobby which we generally didn't use. Who knows how long that popcorn's been lying there, lol...sometimes coffee is free, sometimes you have to put money into the coffee machine. 
  

Bad Stuff

• Not being sure you'd have a room for the night.
• Visiting places that are too expensive/out of rooms.
• Language barrier. They generally understand 'One night???', or have one person who speaks English. One had someone who spoke Mandarin. Hotel Pop sees quite a lot of foreign travelers, I think, so it was fairly easy to leave luggage with them/express our desire to do so. But I feel like that might be a problem with some of the other places.. 
• 'Can I see the room?' Good idea in theory, in practice by the time we go up to see the room, I generally felt bad and unless it was SUPER AWFUL we stayed in it anyway..so it was a good thing I'd researched quite a few of the places beforehand. ._.
• HARD BEDS. Christ. This depends on the hotel, though.
• Sometimes, large-sized shampoo/body wash are used. There was body wash in one room and smelt kinda dodgy and made you wonder what went into it...after that, I just used the new bar soap provided in the toiletries pack instead. Urgh.
• Some hotels have towels with holes in them...try to avoid those. ^^"

Stuff that I found OK, but others might find bad

• Yes, some/many rooms have frosted glass/transparent bathrooms. I don't mind, but you may.
• Having to check out every day, find some place for your stuff (if you're not staying multiple nights in the same hotel, in which case reception may keep it for you). This was a mild hassle and, to me, worth the extra $50 I would probably have had to spend to get a room for the whole day instead of half the day.
• Computers usually have some awfully-outdated Internet Explorer on it. That's alright, just install Chrome. Lol.
• Depending on the hotel, some may ask you to hand over your key card if you leave the room for dinner. No problem, just get it back later.
• Toiletries are sometimes not provided automatically. This depends on the place. Usually they'll be happy to provide you with a magic pack upon request, unless they're cheapo like Hotel Star. Robes are usually provided automatically. If you don't get one (here's looking at you, 'Hotel' Star), ask for it and you'll get a pair for free.
• Having to head back to the area to ensure you have a room for the night. Not so much of a problem for us, it was good to take a breather, and if you're fast, you can be in, get the room, and back out onto public transportation within 30 mins, i.e. within the transfer time.

So! Would I stay in a love hotel again? Probably! :) If it remains as cheap. And also, free bb cream..(really it's just tinted moisturiser, lolol)

Feel free to ask me anything in the comments! :) This is the first post in a series, I'll be individually reviewing the hotels/motels we stayed at.