So, my time in Korea is starting to wind down. I really hope you guys have enjoyed seeing where I adventure to and experiencing South Korea's unique cafés along with me! The one I went to this past weekend was very exciting for me because it is the site for the filming of of my all time FAVORITE Korean TV Shows: The First Shop of Coffee Prince.  They used this house to film the drama and then turned it into a café and gallery! To get to it, take the subway to Gyeongbokgung station, get out exit 3 and take bus 1020 or 7022 to Buam Dong community center. From there, walk up the hill until you see a brick building housing a café called Espresso Club. Turn left at the building and then keep left at the forked road. You will see tiny signs shaped like little yellow coffee mugs that say "Sanmotoonge." Walk up the mountain about 15 minutes and it's right there!

This café is full of unique sculptures and art installations, and there is a vintage yellow beetle parked right outside! When my friend and I went, there were a lot of extremely well dressed couples as well as men and women in hiking gear taking pictures with it, so I had to wait a little while to pose with it. 

The coffee was a little pricey at an average of 8,000KRW but the view of the mountains as  well as the unique character of this café make it worth visiting. Not to mention they had all kinds of memorabilia from the show including portraits of the characters, signatures, props, and you could take photos where famous scenes of the drama were filmed (which you know I did.)  I got an iced vanilla latte that was very tasty! My friend does not drink coffee so she opted for a hot chocolate. They also had an assortment of cakes which I did not try because at this point in my trip I am on a budget...
On the second floor there is both a lounge and an outside deck. In the lounge there were all sorts o weird statues and a random array of different phones. They had two phones shaped like mouths that, when picked up, would play PSY's Gangnam Style of Crayon Pop's Bar Bar Bar.  They had private rooms that parties of 4 could use, and the one in the basement (unfortunately had a sleeping couple in it) had a life-size superman statue, a stack of old TV's, and what I think were brightly coloured winged pig(?) statues affixed to the wall. The basement sort of reminded me of a kid's playroom. There was a shelf full of random hats you could try on as well as a dreamiest and a  wooden backyard swing.  There were fishtanks, clocks made from soju bottles and kewpie dolls all over the place. 

Last weekend I went about 3 hours from Seoul to Daegu to visit my friend who teaches English there! Daegu is about 4 hours south by train from Seoul. I mostly just ate and walked around, but one of the places I went to....was inside a freaking plane. A repurposed...huge...real plane...just chilling on the side of Suseong Lake. If you take the new monorail line in Daegu (a really pretty ride, by the way) and get off at Suseong Mot, you can walk around the lake and find it right next to a rather dangerous looking, sketchy carnival.

Of all the things to turn a plane into, the best thing to turn it not would definitely be an ice cream shop/café, right? Right! 

The "ice cream" they have isn't really ice cream. It's more of a version of the Korean bingsu dessert but a little bit more thinly shaved. They call it cotton candy  ice and we got chocolate brownie. It was a small mountain complete with a banana-slice border, strawberries, and mochi (Japanese chewy sweet rice cake thing) 

The inside was decorated so well. Everything was sleek and almost had a kind of 60's vibe. I think people were laughing at how cool I thought it was, but it was my first time eating in a plane-turned-ice cream shop so what did they expect? The ice dessert was so good and so refreshing, and if I remember it cost less than 10,000KRW. The only thing that would have been cheesy if not cooler is if the staff wore flight attendant outfits buuuut it's okay.

And here's your girl with some fantastically poofy hair thanks to a lack of  hair straightener and Korean humidity~

See you guys next time~

It has been so long since I've written anything. I'm so sorry! Prepare for an onslaught of blog entries as I attempt to catch up on showing you all of  the places I've gone! One unique place in particular is a chain café called Zoo Coffee. What do you guys think the theme is? Yep, Circus, you guessed it. 

My sarcasm aside, this café is entirely covered in animal prints and full of stuffed tigers, monkeys, lions, etc. They have waffles, ice cream, as well as your standard coffee drinks. The staff is also extremely friendly (and attractive if you go to the Hongdae branch ^^).  They have wifi,  but the bathroom is password protected and threw me off for a good 10 minutes when I was trying to get inside. Can you picture how confused I was? You can find Zoo coffee by taking an immediate left outside of exit 9 of Hongdae Station. It's about a 2 minute walk! I have been there twice now. The first time I went with a friend and ordered a green tea frappé. My friend ordered dark chocolate ice cream and a tea.  The second time I went was with about 5 or 6 friends and I ordered a waffle that was delicious but unfortunately not warm. -_- There were chocolate, almonds, syrup, ice cream and whipped cream on top, and it cost maybe 9,000KRW. It was also the size of two of my faces. I didn't take a picture because we were there late at night and it was dark. 

This is great because it's summer and the weather is getting grosser and grosser -_-  but they have a huge open patio you can sit on and they open all the huge windows so it feels like you're outside even if you're inside. 

Again, I'm so sorry for the late post. I have about 10 days left of school and about 40 left in Asia. Time is just flying by! See you next time, which will probably be in about half an hour since I have so much more to write about!