Cat Cafe

A month ago, we promised our co-worker’s daughter, Jian (who attends our school) that we would go with her to a cat cafe.

Cat cafes (and dog cafes) are pretty popular among Koreans. You go there and enjoy coffees, teas, and so on while cats roam freely. You can pet them, play with them, and just enjoy their company and cuteness.

Jian is ridiculously obsessed with cats. She wants to be a cat instead of a girl. She often crawls around the school meowing. So of course, we wanted to go with her to see some real cats.

Here’s me and Jian about to enter the cat cafe, named Gio Cat.

Me, Jian and her mom (Mrs. Kim).

There were lots of rules. We had to take off our shoes and wear slippers and sanitized our hands. You weren’t allowed to let the cats play with your drinking straws, you couldn’t mess with their tails, no flash photography (will apparently damage their eyes), you couldn’t pick them up (will cause too much stress), couldn’t press their tummies, couldn’t feed them outside food, and if they were sleeping, you weren’t supposed to wake them.

The cafe provided a roster of all their cats with pics, names, and descriptions.

I enjoyed an Ice Choco, Cory enjoyed a Carmel Macchiato.

There were a lot of fluffy, long haired cats.

There was a vague smell of litterbox (which I’m used to smelling at my parents’ house). Jian plugged her nose for the first ten minutes we were there.

There were some books and magazines about cats and caring for them.

Cory liked the illustrations.

Most of the cats were pretty snobby. They didn’t really want to be cuddled or petted. Most of the time they wandered around avoiding people. I’m sure they were sick of people touching them.

This fat cat could barely fit up there.

My favorite cat, a Bengal cat with a Marble patterned coat.

Another favorite. It was a Scottish Fold (they have floppy ears). Mrs. Kim wanted to take this cat home.

After cat cafe, we sang some songs at noraebang (singing room).

This is Jian pretending to be a kitten on my lap. I think she was pretty sleepy.

Overall, the cat cafe was and interesting experience. I wish the cats would have been more friendly, but I think they were just grumpy because so many people come to pet them. Part of me wishes we had a cat, but I just don’t want the responsibility of a pet (as precious as they are). Plus, we would risk not being able to bring it back to the states, it could get quarantined at the airport, and we would just have to part with it. Not worth it!

We enjoyed spending time with Mrs. Kim and Jian. I look forward to having kids and seeing what their obsessions are. Hanging out with Jian made me realize how different your life is once you have kids. Walking around takes a lot longer, and you have to cater so much to them. But really, Jian is well-behaved and sweet. It was a fun day.