In South Korea, Pet Cafes have become incredibly popular. These are cafes where you can not only enjoy a coffee but also play with pets! The first cat cafes opened in Taiwan and Japan, and the main idea was initially to allow people living in rental apartments (where pets are often not allowed) to interact with animals. Moreover, loneliness is a significant issue among Japanese and Koreans, and Pet Cafes help alleviate this problem to some extent. They often also serve as shelters for animals, helping homeless pets find new homes. Therefore, Pet Cafes not only bring profit to their owners but also provide an opportunity to do good deeds.
In South Korea and Japan, we have already seen cafes with dogs, cats, sheep, and owls. Our next discovery in Seoul was the cafe “Blind Alley,” where raccoons live!
A raccoon is by no means a domesticated animal. It’s a wild creature, and a predator at that! This fact, among other things, accounts for the popularity of the Seoul cafe. Here, as a bonus to cakes and coffee (which Koreans drink in liters every day, every night, in every establishment in Seoul), there’s a rare opportunity – to cuddle raccoons in a cozy, home-like setting. After all, you *probably won’t ever* dare to have this cunning beast in your house! The charm of a raccoon’s adorable face and its tendency for devilish antics always go hand in hand. Shamelessly rummaging through bags and pockets, stealing food and hiding it in its lair – these are its most innocent pastimes! And also – rinsing. The raccoon isn’t called a “washer” for nothing. With manic persistence, it drags its breakfast, lunch, and dinner into a water basin and washes them there. *Before, after, and during meals,* this clean critter meticulously rinses its paws. It climbs into the basin and washes from ears to tail. It’s some kind of obsession 🙂
How can you not fall under the spell of this slightly touched creature?
In nature, a raccoon behaves exactly the same, and this is simply a well-tested tactic and strategy. It dips its paws in water, finds and captures a crab by touch, smashes it against a rock, and then dips it back in the water to check if the crab is more dead than alive, or vice versa. In the cafe, the raccoon won’t find crabs, so it drags cookies, dry food, basically anything it’s given, into the water (raccoons are practically omnivorous).
Visitors need not worry about their cakes and hygiene standards – the raccoons are in a separate room, observed through glass during dining, and you can then boldly (and for free) visit the washers. And they do not smell at all! “Blind Alley” houses three raccoons: two striped ones and one albino. And there’s also an adorable corgi, who is always chased out of the room when it tries to steal food from the raccoons 🙂
The prices for drinks and desserts are average for Seoul: a cup of latte or hot chocolate will cost about 4,000–5,000 Korean won (just under 4–5 dollars).
The address of the raccoon cafe “Blind Alley”: 서울시 용산구 청파동2가 63–20 (63–20 Cheongpa-dong2ga, Yongsan-gu, Seoul).
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