There’s a new CAT CAFE in town! Okay, that wasn’t to sound as excited as it looked with that exclamation point. Emphasis mostly. I like cats. I like my cat. I like my cat in my house on my lap when I’m drinking my coffee. I’m not really a fan of these cat lover cafes around Seoul as I don’t know who these cats really belong to, how they’re treated, or more importantly how they’ll treat me.

This new one I’m talking about is called Tom’s Cat Cafe just next to the park in Hongdae. I didn’t see anyone by the name of Tom around, though I suppose if they were referencing Tom from Tom and Jerry, or Tom as in Tom cat it might be fitting. You have to pay W8,000 just to walk in the door, which is after you take your shoes off and put on slippers and use hand sanitizer. That includes a drink, made from powder, and then all of the cat cuddling time you could want. There is a list of about 20 rules around to make sure no one is harrassing the big kitties, ‘cause they’re big. Don’t go there expecting cute little ones, these are full grown, well taken care of cats. The rules are all in Korean so for any foreigners that do something wrong just pretend you couldn’t understand. One rule is don’t hit the cats’ butts. Most likely I would not have abided by this rule if a cat decided to bite me and then I would have been thrown out for not following the rules, but what do you do in that situation? Let it teeth even though it’s clearly full grown? I suppose I understand the list of rules, but I think people should have some common sense if they go into a cat cafe, or any cafe, or just any place outside their own home.

The cafe itself is very open and a bit bare to useful human needs but there are plenty of boxes and ladders and ledges around for the cats to crawl in and on and under. There were at least 15 cats, which is better than the last ‘cat’ cafe I was taken to and only saw one cat roaming around. If you like cats, check it out. If you don’t, don’t think Tom’s Cat Cafe is referring to anything except cats and just keep walking.

Share this page