Hello Kitty Cafe, Hongdae (Seoul)

Happy holidays everyone! For our overseas friends, today we celebrate Deepavali which marks the beginning of the Hindu New Year according to the Lunar Calendar. Hence, it’s holiday for us! Since it is a joyous occasion, I will be blogging about Hello Kitty Cafe to make everyone happier. Although I have came back from Korea for about a month, I am still missing Korea very much. And whenever I think of Korea, I think of my days in Hongdae.

Having travelled to Korea for a few times, I got pretty bored of the usual shopping places like Dongdaemun and Myeongdong. Don’t get me wrong, these places are nice to shop but I wanted to visit other unique places. In my recent trip to Korea, I visited Hongdae thanks to a recommendation from a friend. And I fell in love with it immediately. We stayed in Myeongdong but almost everyday, I would take the train to Hongdae to shop. There is so much to see!

What captivates me? The hype, perhaps. It is near Hongkik University so this is the place where many university students hang out (so you generally feel younger there). There are very very interesting cafes, you can walk around the streets for many hours but there is always something interesting in each shop. There is also a Trickeye Museum and at night, you can catch performances like “Nanta” in the theatre or simply stand at the street and listen to the talented university students singing outside restaurants. There aren’t alot of tourists in the area and the Koreans may have limited understanding of English, so you probably have problems asking for directions. But that is okay for me, because it gives me the time to explore the area.

Anyway you should have guessed it, we visited Hello Kitty Cafe in Hongdae. Ok this isn’t the most interesting cafe you can find in Hongdae, but girls being girls, we just squeal when we see this cute little cat without a mouth.

They have Hello Kitty mousse cake, waffles, and coffee sprinkled with cocoa powder in hello kitty shape.

So you have to wait for your order to be ready, and when it is done, the buzzer will vibrate.

While waiting, we take photos! Here’s my shopping partner for that day, Pei Mei!

We ordered a hello kitty fresh cream waffles (3,500 won) and a Cafe Latte (3.800 won). Actually I also ordered a cup of cuppuccino but they didn’t sprinkle the cocoa powder with hello kitty head, so I didn’t take any photos of it.

I visited the toilet and…

Decided to went back to my seat to take my camera because the decor in the toilet is too cute to resist!

That’s the toilet door.

hello kitty mirror!

Hello, it’s me again!

They also sell hello kitty merchandises. We didn’t buy any because we aren’t really hardcore fans.

Look, before we leave, we saw this cute stick at each step. It’s a hello kitty head!

Here’s the last shot of me and Pei Mei before we continued shopping.

Don’t expect Hello Kitty Cafe to serve your marvellous food, because they are selling the concept and not exactly the food. Even if you are not a Hello Kitty fan, you should still come to Hongdae for a walk. I am sure you will be able to find some cafes you really like.

I tried to follow some directions of Hello Kitty Cafe given on some of the blogs but they are kinda useless because the shops around the area changes very fast. They may ask you to identify paris baguette or coffee bean but you see it in almost every street and it is difficult to locate the exact shop.

So my advice to you is, alight at Shinchon Station Exit 3 OR Hongkik University Station Exit 9. You should reach the middle of the busy Hongdae street. Take your time to walk around the place, and you may eventually find it. If you are a real hardcore kitty fan, you can ask any shop assistant. They are generally very friendly people and will help you.