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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…
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Continue reading →: Cafe Review: Blue Bottle, MyeongdongThere’s really not much to say about the Myeongdong location of Blue Bottle. It’s a take-away only location located in Noon Square, a large shopping mall in Myeongdong. I ordered the winter latte with oat milk, and the barista let me know that it would be a sweet latte, which…
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Continue reading →: Memorials and Mourning: Reflecting on the Jeju Airline TragedyAfter the unfortunate crash of Jeju Airline flight 7C2216, the Acting President Choi Sang-mok declared a weeklong mourning period for South Korea. This is the second mourning period I have witnessed while living in Korea, the first being after the Itaewon crowd crush in 2022 that killed 159 people. As…
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Continue reading →: Books I Read in 2024I read a lot in 2024 but I still think I could have put my phone down more often in favor of a book. I have several entries about reading all original 62 Goosebumps books coming soon, but for now, here’s a list of everything that I read this year.
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Continue reading →: Exploring Jesus’ Birthday Cafe in South KoreaYes, that’s an advertisement for a birthday cafe for Jesus. A new friend introduced it to us via a TikTok and when we discovered it was only a short bus ride away, we obviously had to go and find out what it was all about. Was it a joke? Was…
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Continue reading →: Solo Summer Trip to Gangneung: A Coffee Lover’s Journey, part fourI’m not sure why I decided to take a solo trip to Gangneung for summer vacation 2024. I had heard of the infamous cafe street, but the previous cafe streets I’ve visited have been disappointing, with lots of chain cafes, few cafes, or simply not enough cafes (in my opinion)…
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Continue reading →: Rereading Goosebumps–Fifty Two/Sixty TwoI was determined to complete this challenge without spending a dime, but four books were eluding me: How to Kill a Monster, Bad Hare Day, Deep Trouble II, and Chicken Chicken. My friend came through and I was able to get copies of these books, securing access to all 62…
Welcome to Koffee & Kpop, adventures of an errant American barista living in South Korea.
Koffee & Kpop 