Bow House

I knew I'd forgotten something when I made my top ten list for our first six months. Then I realised it was all the cool cafes they have here. We've already written about Dr. Fish and cat cafes, and since cats chase fish and dogs chase cats, the next logical step was Bau house Dog Cafe in Hongdae.  

Similar to a cat cafe, you buy a drink for a bit more than you would elsewhere and you can stay as long as you want and play with the dogs. The cat cafe we went to was cool, but I liked Bauhaus better. I think dogs are just better suited to having a stream of people coming through all day and paying attention to them. The cats tend to get a bit sick of it, but most of the dogs were running around and engaging with people, even running over to the door and barking like crazy at new people who arrived.

The cafe is arranged in booths with a few other seats around the place. In one corner are food and water for the dogs. The staff circle around keeping an eye on things and cleaning up any 'accidents'. The dogs have the run of the place, climbing on sofas and tables, with several of them basking on the big sunny windowsill for most of the time we were there. There are about twenty dogs at the cafe, ranging from a tiny angry little thing (I'm hopeless with breeds, sorry) who loved this one staff member and absolutely hated everyone else, to a huge husky that was close to six feet tall when he was standing on its hind legs. We took a seat on some couches and soon had the attention of two big fluffy white dogs. 

The one on the table is Angry Dog.

There were three insanely happy three corgis who were running around like all over the place. After a while one bounded across the room to us with his tongue hanging out. He sat there for a few minutes and then got distracted by something shiny and ran away.

The cafe also has one very angry looking cat, but she stayed in her pumpkin the whole time we were there.

You can buy treats at Bauhaus to feed to the dogs, at which point you become their god.There was this one giant fluffy dog that was particularly fond of the treats and used its terrifying unblinking stare to get more of them. Don't get me wrong, this dog was cute, but it's quite unsettling to be starred at by a big ball of fluff with its tongue hanging out for several minutes at a time.

The starring stopped only when the camera came out.

We stayed at Bauhaus for an hour or so playing with the dogs. Dog cafes are one of the more fun ways to spend an afternoon in Seoul and they should've snuck into my list somewhere.

We're off skiing for the weekend so our comprehensive review of Korean hospitals should be up early next week.