Cats. Dogs. Kitties.

Another weekend, another day trip to Daegu. We had a mission that needed to be put to action, a hole to be filled, a hole shaped like a certain 16lb cat left back home. It was time to visit a motherfucking cat cafe.

After wondering around looking at a map I had on my phone, having a burrito, and being stopped by a group of young banking students to get a photo with us, we found the CATDOG Cafe. Actually the name in Korean was Dogs VS. Cats Cafe, but I think that's a bit misleading because no battling occurred. At least not when we were there. 

Entrance fee was 8000W (5.5€/4.7£), and included a drink. Most of the drinks on the menu were coffee based (BLEUGHR) so I had a "peperment" tea (snicker snicker). After that, it was shoes off, slippers on, hand sanitizer, and if you wanted you could get a hideous maxi skirt from the front desk to wear over your jeans so you don't get covered in fur. To that I say pfffft, do I look like an amateur to you? One floor was cats, one floor was dogs. We decided to start with cats because god damn it, I just love cats so much.

We sat down with out teas, and waited for the cats to flock to me like I was Snow White. After a few minutes of no cat action, George said out loud what we were both thinking: "These cats are like strippers". Damn right, little furry whores. Customers could purchase little bags of cat treats from the front desk, and the cats knew this. God damn hustlers, they would only flock to the people with abundance of snacks, and let them touch their tummies. I was very upset, I had wanted to build a meaningful feline connection, not a cheap one night stand where I would shove dollas in the form of cat treats to their hairy cat knickers. Distraught. 

"I can has a treat, you can has a lapdance?"

"Nvm, this Korean couple next to you has some."

"Hiya guys, you looking to buy tonight?"

Barely able to hide the disgust on her face, "Fucking time wasters.."

This little one is strung out to hide the ugly reality of what her life has become. 

"Treats?"

"No treats."

And just then, a cat appeared from the mist. A real old fashioned gentleman cat. 

He's a Scottish Foldear, that's why he looks grumpy. But he was very lovely. 

I then made friends with the Korean girl pictured in one of the first photos, and she gave me some cat treats. I felt bad because I had cursed them previously. So I went and gave majority of them to this cat who loved me even when I was broke. The rest I made rain on the sluts. 

Last goodbyes with our own cat, it was time to go upstairs to have a go at the dogs. 

Upstairs the vibe was the same: money or animal treats makes the world go round, and unfortunately here we couldn't find that one old, wise soul who could see past all of that and accept our tummy touches. 

George can read hangul (I know, BACK OFF LADIES or I'll bite you in the face) so he was able to translate some of the dogs names. The sausage dog was called Limousine, the pug was called Mandu. Mandu is a Chinese dumpling, with a really wrinkly and fold-y surface, and it does really look like a pug's face. The big white lab was called Banana. I don't know why. Maybe he likes bananas or it's a reference to penis size. 

Notes from fans. 

All joking aside, the place was very clean and well run. The animals had a "back stage" room where they could go if they didn't felt like being with a ton of people, and the one's that did enjoy the hubbub but didn't feel like being touched, has special ribbons which meant they be cranky. 

Before heading home, we ticked one more thing from my list of things I wanted to do here, as it fit with the cat theme well. 

Plastic food. Note the official Hello Kitty hotdog. 

Mint chochip frappuchino and a tiramisu. The tiramisu was just a cheesecake. 

"Nom nom, give kitty all your tampons and sanitary pads!!"

I asked George if the men's room had a Hello Kitty urinal of her with her eyes closed and mouth open but he denied it. Maybe he was just embarrassed. 

Buddha's Birthday

Brace yourself, pictures from Buddha's birthday are coming.

This was one of those rare days we knew what we were doing in advance. Today was Buddha's birthday which is a national holiday. That means that George has a three day weekend. So today to celebrate Buddha's BD, we set off to visit our local temple, just a walk away from our flat.

Spotted this anarchist cat doing a dirty protest for the greedy oil industry. (Click to enlarge the photo and you'll see the cat is in fact poopin').

Also spotted on our walk to the temple was this random shout out to Finland (which in Korean is pronounced Pinlandu). 

As you can tell by all the squinting, it was a very sunny day, but as you can tell by the jeans, the weather was still pleasantly mild. The last photo was taken by a kind gentleman who offered to take it, I didn't even have to use the phrase taught to me by my phrase book! (REAL fans of this blog will recognise the reference!!)

Me surrounded by my blog readers. 

I've gone a little overboard with decorating George's flat. HAHA JUST KIDDING, THIS IS THE TEMPLE. 

After we left the prayer room, I sat outside to put my shoes back on and that's when I made a granny friend. She was very old and shrivelled, and refused to understand that I didn't speak any Korean. Throwing my only words around, such as "Hello" and pointing myself and saying "Finland!"she was considerably impressed and beckoned me to follow her (and ok, George too, but she was my friend first!). She led us to a big cafeteria, where the temple ladies were handing free lunches for members of the temple. We got a trayfull of delicious vegetarian stirfry, rice, bbq sauce, vinegary soup and seaweed soup. Natives successfully infiltrated! 

Adorable kids. 

 

Very pleased by our authentic cultural experience.

After the local temple, we decided to head to town because I faintly remembered reading a sign that there was another temple behind Tumuli park (check a few posts back to see Tumuli park). We had gone Buddha crazy, people!!

Nuns enjoying the free day off, despite recognising a different faith..!!

We got to town, and set off trying to find this fabled temple close to Tumuli park. Here's what we found: 

A pillar erected in the honour of a dude who mourned his parents for three years next to their graves, impressing the king. 

A very nice garden.

Tumuli park. Here George is making me laugh, how dare he?!?!

A wall of roses. 

But no temple. Oh hey wait. Maybe it wasn't a temple. Maybe I got it mixed up and was thinking about this shrine. Yup. I definitely was. Well it didn't matter, the day was beautiful and this shrine was peaceful. 

The shrine was full of tiny private rooms for meditating and prayer, but we just enjoyed a quiet sit down and a chance to not have to talk to each other all the time. We were on a roll and decided to continue walking. 

_Very_ close by (like three minutes) was one of Gyeongju's biggest tourist sights: this tower. No one is 100% sure what the tower is for, but it's believed to have something to do with astronomy because it has 366 rocks, 52 something and 12 something or the other. Man, I really can't remember. 

Little kings running. 

Next to the tower was a big field full of families and tourists and couples enjoying the nice day, and flying kites. Suddenly, I was approached by four university (probably) student lads, holding a kite. "Do you know this?" they asked me. "To fly one? Yes!" I said (proud member of Kitten/Kite Club). "Then it's your's!" Waaah, how incredibly nice! I immediately set of flying the shit out of my new awesome peacock kite. 

George was also allowed to try after he whined about it for long enough. 

We had already previously decided that after sight seeing, we would go to town for dinner and to catch Great Gatsby. I was very keen to bring my new kite home for decorating the walls, but suddenly realised why I was gifted it in the first place: carrying it was a pain in the ass. So we paid the good deed forward and gave it to a family with two very appreciative kids.  

Which I immediately regretted because I wanted to give it to these two bad asses posing by the entrance gate to the park. I strongly encourage you to click the picture to enlarge it, these two bad mofos look like they're in a middle of a photo shoot for their album cover. 

George can only dream to reach those levels of cool, although he pulls off shades and standing around pretty well, too.