Hello Kitty Cafe

Since we have been in Korea, everyday has been filled with checking in, running errands and getting set up in our house.  I wanted to do some fun things with the girls during their summer break, so I decided to take an adventure with them once a week.  The first week we ventured out to a cafe called Hello Kitty Cafe.  Hello Kitty is very popular over here, much more so than in the US.  It is popular not just with little girls but grown women and boys too.  Cafes are also very popular over here.  They have tons of themed cafes where you can go get some coffee, surf the free wi-fi and hang out with friends.  When I read about this Hello Kitty Cafe I knew the girls would love it.

Getting to the cafe was a bit of a challenge.  They don't really have road names over here, so my directions went something like this...
Go out the subway at exit 5
Walk to the main intersection
Keep walking for 3-4 more minutes until you see the store that sells cosmetics
Turn right and walk until you see the wall with the graffiti cat

I can't begin to tell you how incorrect these directions were.  Basically after we got off the subway at exit 5 (as a side note, they often will renumber the exits of the subway-I guess to keep things interesting-and my directions were from 2010 so I had the incorrect exit number which started us off going the wrong direction) we were lost.  I mean, how accurate can directions be when they tell you to look for the graffiti cat?    It took us over 30 minutes after we exited the subway and asking 3 different people (2 of whom did not speak English and looked at me like I had 3 eyes) to finally find the place.  I had almost given up hope, but the third times a charm and the 3rd young girl I asked knew where it was and helped us find it.  Ironically, we were only about 2 blocks from it when we were about to give up.

Once we spotted the place and I saw the girls eyes light up I knew my efforts were worth it.  They were thrilled.  To me, it looked like Hello Kitty had vomited and it all landed in this one cafe.  As you can see in the pictures, EVERYTHING in the place is Hello Kitty, even the boys bathroom.

Overall, after all was said and done, we had a great time and I would go back again (but don't worry I wrote the correct directions down so if I go back it will be a much easier adventure).

Yea!  We finally found it.  Let the pink fun begin.

The cafe was two stories.  We sat upstairs to eat our "lunch" (see below pictures) and downstairs to eat dessert.

Hello Kitty in the girls bathroom.

Hello Kitty in the boys bathroom...don't worry no boys were in there when I took this picture.

The cafe is known for Hello Kitty not for it's food...just a hot dog for lunch.

Sitting downstairs waiting for our dessert.

The hot chocolate and chocolate cake were both really good.  The girls thought the Hello Kitty on the top of the drink was awesome.

On the subway, all worn out after our fun adventure.