With several birthday cafes under my belt now, I didn’t feel the need to travel all over Seoul to visit every birthday cafe for Onew, SHINee’s leader. It was more a chance to hang out with another one of my Shawol friends.
The first cafe we went to was Monroe. I’m still trying to figure out what that blue light room was really for.
vertical poster outside the cafestack of paper cups on the counterposters arranged in a chaotic way featuring various photos of OnewOnew throwing a baseball pitch and other photos of him in a baseball jerseya little table set up with fake birthday cakes for Onew’s two plush characters: a cat wearing a pink bunny hat, and a white bunnya black Onew jerseythe inside of a locker featuring a bag hanging up and various photos of Onewa baseball glove and copies of his “weekend” version of Flow, which features him in a baseball jersey holding some baseball glovesa desk with a computer decked out in photos of Onew, along with a large plushieWhat’s Your Favorite Onew? poster featuring a rabbit, a cat in bunny ears, and a blurry photo of Onew holding up his armsmore photosmore photos and albumsstanding photos of Onew along with some small cassette-like albumsa blue-lit room wrapped off with warning tape that reads “No rabbit No cat No Onew allowed”posters on the wall of the blue rooma guitar propped up against a chair with a microphone on it, with more posters of Onew on the wall
Next was Cafe Cookied, which holds a lot of birthday cafes. Onew actually stopped into this cafe one day. Unfortunately, my friend and I were there when he was having his own birthday shindig that I wasn’t able to get tickets for.
There are a few short videos online of Onew actually visiting this birthday cafe.
I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but really enjoyed the blue and yellow fish theme (a nod to a line in Onew’s song “Maestro”), and really appreciated the A4 size calendar.
large poster covering the windows of the cafean open notebook with some Korean written in it, next to a blue crayon and magnifying glassanother infamous stack of paper cups on the counteran A4 poster showing the various goodies you can get at the cafean A4 poster showing the various sets and gifts you can receive with said purchasessome of the goodies I got, including a large illustrated calendar featuring a gold fish and a cat wearing a diving helmet under the sea
The last cafe was Sweet Dope. The theme was Teacher Onew, which was a really cute take on the birthday cafe theme.
vertical poster outside the cafestack of paper cups behind a birthday cakevarious Onew character plushies a visual set-up of drinks and goodies you can get, as well as a few signed itemssome photos from one of my favorite photoshoots of Onew’sa large cut-out of Onew standing with his hands on his hips in khakis, a white shirt and striped tie, with a blackboard behind him with Korean written on ita desk in front of Onew, with various objects like papers, pens, a little plush pencil case and mirror, etc.a girl’s school uniform hung on the wall with a sky blue plaid skirt, matching bow tie, and sky blue cardiganvarious photos of Onew standing in front of a blackboardthe inside of a locker featuring lots of repeating photocards of Onew along the backanother level of the locker with a sign that reads “Happiness” and various Onew plushiesmore photos and memorabilia in the lockerlots of Onew photocardsmore photosphotos of Onew hung up on strings along the windows of the cafemore photos of OnewOnew albums standing on a shelfmore Onew albums
I appreciate birthday cafes because I enjoy mingling with other fans and seeing the creative set-ups that are put up by fans.
Koffee & Kpop 
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