Koffee & Kpop

On December 9th, my book club had a “non-book book club meeting” at a cafe, followed by a visit to a European Christmas market nearby.

Cafe Hyehwamun Arae is located in Seongbuk-gu. It’s a cute little cafe that offers basic espresso drinks as well as yummy pour-overs and bakes its pastries in house. There isn’t a lot of variety as far as the pastries go, but what I got was fresh and delicious. I also think they small-batch roast their own coffee beans, as there were numerous beans to choose from for the pour-over and a few bags of whole bean coffee available for purchase.

We were a little worried as to what we would end up talking about at a “non-book book club meeting” but we talked about everything under the sun, from books we’ve read this year to our jobs, annoying husbands and k-drama-esque mother-in-law relationships… It was only the second time I’ve met up with anyone from the book club and it was nice to see some of the girls again and meet others for the first time. It was a small group of 5 of us, and we all happened to be American even though not everyone in the book club is.

After the cafe started getting crowded, we decided to head over to the Christmas market nearby.

The European Christmas market was located at the Seongbukcheon Fountain Plaza. It was only the second Christmas market I’ve been to (the first being in Chicago back in 2018) and it was crowded. We weren’t even able to make it to most of the stalls, but we pushed our way through for some glühwein, mulled wine. It was served in paper cups for 5,000 won and if you didn’t have cash, you could do a bank transfer on the spot and they would call out your name once it went through.

It was much too busy to stand around and drink our glühwein in the actual Christmas market, so we wandered a bit and stood off the side of the subway station entrance where we drank our wine and continued to chat.

Eventually, our little group broke up and two of us went to go eat sandwiches across the street before heading back to our respective homes. I was glad I waited around until it got dark out and the Christmas tree was lit.

It was a fun time and my only wish is that the glühwein had been served in mugs that we got to keep, like it was at the Chicago Christmas market. I still have my little heart-shaped mug from that trip. They did serve us a lot of wine for the price we paid, however, so I’m not complaining.

I also wish it had been a little colder that day. It was so warm we were taking off our jackets while we were chatting. It was not the right weather for warm mulled wine, but I think the nice weather helped the Christmas market in general because so many people came out to enjoy it.