As mentioned in one of my previous posts, Korea has really erupted into a coffee culture, which was not the case at all when I arrived in Korea in September 2003. Koreans thought coffee wasn't healthy and preferred tea instead. The only places that served coffee were Dunkin Donuts and the "dabang" where only older people hung out.
Then the coffee explosion hit in 2006. Starbucks and Coffee Bean became a trend. Due to their success, Korean companies wanted to add some competition to foreign brands and cash in on the booming trend so TomNToms, Angel-In-Us, and Holly's started to open. Later Cafe Bene opened and even started expanding to New York City and Los Angeles.
In 2011, Korea opened its first dog cafe to add to its coffee fascination. The first one to open was Bau House Dog Cafe in Hongdae. I went there and was surprised at how clean and well taken care of it was. To this day, it remains popular.
Then Korea jumped on the cat cafe bandwagon. Cat cafes started in Taiwan in 1998. Then they got really popular in Japan and as of 2015, the city of Tokyo had 58 cat cafes. Naturally, Korea couldn't be outdone by Japan, so Korea started following the cat cafe trend.
Seoul started getting even more creative with cafes (See Seoul's Unique Cafes and more recently the The 10 Best Uniquely Themed Cafes by 10 Magazine). You have a Charlie Brown cafe, cafes where you can study, a sheep cafe and believe it or not a raccoon cafe!
Last week, I explored the Blind Alley raccoon cafe near Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul. Once you get there, you order your coffee (about W5,000 for a cafe latte) and then you can go to the room where the raccoons are (go to the back and then turn right). Three raccoons were running loose with a Corgi dog playing with them. Here is one just hanging around enjoying the attention:
They were really clean and very well taken care of. There were four staff members. One person took coffee orders, a woman in her 20s, a guy in his 20s, and the owner who you could tell loved the raccoons. I was able to feed one and pet it at the same time as you can see in the picture below. If I tried to play with them with no food, they would be a bit rough and bite me. Haha! They could bite hard, but they were just playing. You just need to be careful or make sure you have food in your hand!
Interestingly enough, this place also had an albino raccoon. I had never seen one at a zoo let alone at a raccoon cafe. I was able to get a decent picture despite it being so active and running from one side of the room to the other. His fur just like the other two were really soft a domestic cat or a dog.
But the highlight of the visit was seeing the Corgi dog interact with the raccoons. The Corgi, which loves to roam all over the cafe, was wrestling with one of the raccoons. After posting this video on Facebook my brother said if that was a real fight (and not playing), he would put bets on the raccoon easily. The dog instigated and the raccoon seemed to win. It was the most hilarious thing I had seen this year. See the video here: Corgi vs. Raccoon
How to get to Blind Alley Raccoon Cafe:
1. Go to Sookmyung University Station (Line 4)
2. Come out of Exit 10
3. Turn back and go to the corner.
4. From that corner turn right and go under the overpass.
5. Cross the street of a major intersection and continue going straight.
6. Walk for 5 minutes and then you will see the street you're on merging with another small street.
7. From there you'll pass three blocks and it will be on your right. Just be careful not to pass it because the entrance is tiny and the front door isn't directly on the sidewalk.
You can use Never Maps like I did as you see in the pictures below. The first one shows where to go from the station and the second one zooms in once you get closer to the cafe:
If you have any questions, drop me a comment and I'll do my best to help you! Have fun, have some coffee, and pet some raccoons!
Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy
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