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Continue reading →: Flower Cafe Of Your Dreams, City GardenI visited this beautiful flower cafe on a rainy Tuesday morning after running an errand. Even though the opening time was stated as 10am, the doors were open at 9:45 and I was warmly welcomed in from the rain. I had a delicious hand-drip coffee and slice of cinnamon cake…
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Continue reading →: Must-See Exhibits at the Arario Museum in SeoulOne of my favorite museums in Seoul is the Arario Museum in Space, a quirky modern art museum next to Fritz Coffee in Jongno. As I’ve told a few friends I’ve taken there, “it’s an experience” as you move through the museum in a disorienting and non-linear way. Don’t be…
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Continue reading →: Korean Translations of Goosebumps: Most Wanted SeriesI recently went to Aladin secondhand bookstore and discovered five of the Goosebumps: Most Wanted series translated into Korean. (It appears that seven were translated, and the store was missing books number five and seven, which seem to be and Creature Teacher: The Final Exam and Son of Slappy, respectively.)…
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Continue reading →: Korean AirBnB, a Block From the BeachLast month, my two friends and I rented an AirBnB for Friday and Saturday night in Busan, about a block from Gwangalli Beach. I’ve got tons of photos from the Gamcheon Culture Village I need to edit, as well as from a solo trip to the Haedong Yonggungsa Temple, aka…
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Continue reading →: Typewriter Themed Cafe: Cafe Tajagi, HBCThe morning I left Seoul the last weekend I visited, I planned on going to a cafe in Haebangchon with some friends I met through a coffee lover’s group. Unfortunately, when I rolled up (or rather, panted my way up the steep and winding strets of HBC, as it’s the…
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Continue reading →: Book Review: Toward Eternity, Anton Hur“Humanity is not a thing you achieve by giving. It is something that is given to you.” – Anton Hur, “Toward Eternity” In The Near Future, we are introduced to Doctor Mali, who creates a notebook in order to chronicle the disappearance of Patient One, who has a nanodroid body…
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Continue reading →: Exploring the Songpa Book Museum: A Hidden Gem for Book LoversMy friend Nicole and I visited the Songpa Book Museum and Wayo Coffee sometime early this year. The Songpa Book Museum is an absolute must-visit for book lovers, so read on to find out why! But first, coffee: Wayo Coffee was somewhat close to the Book Museum and we stopped…
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Continue reading →: Kitsch Cafe Review: Cafe HanjanIf you come to Seoul and you visit only franchise cafes, you’re doing it wrong. While there’s nothing wrong with a franchise iced americano or specialty drink once in a while, there are a wealth of small, independent cafes just waiting to welcome you in. In my 5+ years of…
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Continue reading →: Manhole Collection, August 2024-May 2025Manhole Covers The beauty of manhole covers—what of that?Like medals struck by a great savage khan,Like Mayan calendar stones, unliftable, indecipherable,Not like the old electrum, chased and scored,Mottoed and sculptured to a turn,But notched and whelked and pocked and smashedWith the great company names(Gentle Bethlehem, smiling United States).This rustproof artifact…
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Continue reading →: Book Review: Forty-Nine Days, Sonam Tsomo ChashutsangIn her debut poetry collection, Sonam Tsomo Chashutsang grieves her mother’s death through the Tibetan Buddhist belief in the bardo, a period of forty-nine days in which the soul is guided towards its future rebirth in one of six realms of existence. Starting with the day her sister in India…
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Continue reading →: Paju Folk Museum & Hemong Pene CoffeehouseOne of my friends took us to their favorite cafe, Hemong Pene Coffeehouse (헤몽페네 커피집), and the National Folk Museum of Korea, Paju, several months ago. The cafe specialized in hand-drip coffee and selling handmade crafts of various types from local artisans. The coffee was really good and they even…
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Continue reading →: Book Review: Red Sword, Bora ChungBook fog. Those were the two words I uttered to my co-worker when she cast me a sideways glance when she poked her head into my classroom. “Book fog. Y’know, like when you just finish a book and it felt like a punch in the gut but you want to…
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Continue reading →: Book Review: The Rainfall Market, You Yeong-GwangAfter several false starts, I finally put my head down and plowed through The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang. If you’re a fan of the “healing fiction” genre, you’ll probably love this book. It’s a quick, cute, comforting read that the publishers knew would bring in revenue, as it was…
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Continue reading →: Cafe Review: Cafe ToyoI recently went to my very first craft cafe. It was adorable and I had a lot of fun meeting the other people in the craft group. The omijade was delicious and the staff were really nice. One of the cons was that the bathroom was a literal trek around…
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Continue reading →: Rediscovering Goosebumps: My Top 5 Favorite BooksWell, my 12-year-old self would feel accomplished: I finished reading all of the original 62 Goosebumps books in a year, for free. I tend to do a lot of side-quests in life, and this was yet another one, spurred by going through my boxes of books being kept at my…
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Continue reading →: Camping with Comfort: My First Glamping ExperienceTwo of my friends and I went glamping for my birthday. I’ve never been camping, let alone glamping, so I had no idea what to expect. We took a taxi to the campground, where my friend was already getting settled in. I went into the office and asked in Korean…
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Continue reading →: Drunken Bean: The NYC Subway Experience in SeoulStepping into Drunken Bean will make you think, ‘Wait, where am I again? This is Seoul, right?’ The New York City subway-inspired cafe is more than just inspired–featuring a yellow checkered taxi on the second floor, a replica subway train on B1, and an entrance marked by subway signs and…
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Continue reading →: Celebrating Onew: A Shawol’s Birthday Cafe ExperienceWith 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.…
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Continue reading →: All Aboard the Great Train eXpress (GTX-A) to Seoul StationAt the end of December 2024, a nearby higher speed commuter rail station opened. (Faster than a normal subway train, but not fast enough to be considered “high speed.”) Normally, I take a bus to Seoul Station and it takes me an hour. With GTX-A, however, my time would be…
Welcome to Koffee & Kpop, adventures of an errant American barista living in South Korea.
Koffee & Kpop 