My friend wanted to check out the Hongdae Free Market (no the items are not free of charge) today so we decided to meet up for lunch and then head over. The market venue is the "Hongdae Playground" right across from the university. It runs from 1PM-6PM every Saturday (March to November). After a quick meal of Galbi Tang we walked over to the market area. I didn't take many pictures there because a lot of the artists had signs prohibiting photography of their work...
The above stalls are not actually part of the free market but this street is representative of the area.
Many of the items for sale are handmade goods, or at least goods that appear handmade. Another popular item for sale are caricatures. My friend wanted to get one but the line for the artist she wanted was actually quite long :(
[Cat Cafe #2]
The next stop of the day was another cat cafe. We went to Toms cat cafe which frankly was not as nice as Cat Attic in my opinion. There was a noticeable smell of cat in the cafe. One thing that made me nervous was they had you put any purse/bag/pack you brought in with you inside a plastic drawstring bag. This was just in case the cats decided your bag was their new litter box.
This cafe had more cats than Cat Attic but I don't think this was necessarily a good thing. They had over 30 cats on their roster including a few kittens...it was all a bit overwhelming for the cats and humans...
It was still a decent time but I would recommend Cat Attic.
[Anyang]
I spent the evening in Anyang visiting my friend who used to work in the USA but has since returned to Korea. We ate shabu-shabu which is delicious. I recommend trying it! You may have had the Chinese version before...I'm not sure what really differentiates the two but below are a few pictures of the Korean version!
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