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.)