Hidden Gems in Hongdae

People have been going crazy about this new cafe in Hongdae where you can get your selfie in/on your coffee. I decided to check it out since you all know I love theme cafes. This cafe is called CaFace. Like other theme cafes I find the coffee to be mediocre but I don't go for the coffee only the experience. 

I love the exterior of the building. It feels very inviting and cartoony. It's also very easy to spot.

Surprisingly the coffee prices aren't that overly expensive. We asked the baristas what we should order to get our selfie on the picture and she said anything really but the colder the better. So I got an ice cafe latte and Jung got a hazelnut latte. To get the selfie printed you have to pay an extra 2,200 won per person. Not too bad eh!

After ordering your drink, the next step is to go in the photo booth by the entrance. In the photo booth there is a cellphone in which you use to take a selfie. You can look through other people's selfies to get an idea of what to do. Even though it's a bit weird, I know, we struggle with posing for pictures. After you take your picture you don't have to send it anywhere, just make sure you save it then just wait. The cafe was dead when we came inside so we had the place to ourselves, but they were working on a big order.

The cafe has this really clean feeling. Everything is white, but there are punches of colour every where. I look that clean, sleek look.

We waited about 5-10 mins and our drinks were finally ready. I've never been so excited about coffee before ㅋㅋㅋ. Immediately we got our cellphones out and started snapping selfies as you should with these drinks. I have no idea how they made it but I can definitely see why it's so popular. Only in Korea are people so vain to think of an idea like this. I've got to say it is brilliant! After all I am taking selfies with my drink ㅋㅋ.  I think Korea has definitely made me feel that it is okay to take a selfie any and everywhere.***When you are taking selfie be careful not to tilt the cup to far or to squish it. I did that and our faces look a little messed up.

Selfies with our selfies

I took a picture of our drinks after we squished them a little bit. The drink on the right my face looks very strange. Make sure not to wear white like I did, you blend in a little too much with the background.

Selfie drinks

It's me again posing with our selfie drink. Since there was two of us we got to take two pictures. I've seen pictures where 3 or 4 people squish into the picture. But these look better with 1 or 2 people in the picture so it's less crowded.

My selfie with our selfie!

After we were done taking our 20 pictures we had to ruin the picture to drink our coffee. I really didn't want to ruin it but I was thirsty. I just mixed the drink, the foam on top was pretty sweet. Bye bye picture :(

I think we stayed about 30 minutes. Then we decided to get lunch. Right outside we saw a sign for Mexican food which looked delicious and was a good price. The restaurant, Mitotero, was literally located right above CaFace. We both ordered the chicken bowl with a lime Margarita. The Margaritas were a bit on the strong side for 1 pm, nonetheless still delicious. The chicken bowls came in the cutest ceramic Mexican bowls. The food was a bit spicy but soooo good. I didn't finish it though because I wasn't as hungry as I thought (it was a big portion).

Yummy Mexican lunch

On our way out we were given a postcard and a stamp card. The stamp card is actually a good one because you get benefits a lot faster than other places. The postcard was a nice gesture, I've never had that experience in another restaurant. We still had a bit of time to kill because we were going to see Star Wars at 5pm and it was 1pm. So, I took her to my new found favourite noraebang place, Su Noraebang, and we jammed out for an hour. After that we had nothing t do and time to kill so we were going to head to Yongsan since that was where the movie was and check out the mall. On the way back to the subway a colourful building caught my eye and I stopped. It looked like a photo booth store like the Japanese purikura pictures. So of course we stopped and went it.

Picture booths!!

I love these places. They are so much fun! You can choose wigs to wear, glasses, masks or cute head bands. In Japan they had costumes, make-up, wigs the whole shebang. I rather not use those anyways, who knows where they have been. It cost us only 7,000 won for two sets of pictures, not too shabby. We suck at posing for pictures and we were lucky that the booth that we picked showed us some poses so we just copied them. They were very "interesting" poses but the pictures turned out really cute. After we took our pictures we had to go to a different booth to decorate the pictures. Here are some of the pictures, you can see a before and after decorations in the bottom row :)

Decorating our pictures

They give you a time limit to decorate your pictures, so make sure you don't spend too much time on each picture. After you are done the booth will print your pictures, it takes 2-3 mins to print. Then take your pictures to the front where someone (most likely a girl) will be standing there ready to laminate your pictures.

Finished pictures

This was right above the girl's work station. This pink chandelier is super cute!

Some props

After she is done laminating your pictures you can take them to this booth to cut them. Some people leave their stickers behind.

Cutting station

Getting to CaFace: Take line 3 (green line) and disembark at Hongik Uni. exit 9. From the continue straight until the first traffic light. cross the street and turn left going up the street towards Forever 21. On the 3rd street make a right. Continue down the street, stay to the left side and on the 3rd street turn left and it will be right in front of you.

*As for the photo sticker place, i'm not sure what it is called or the exact location. I will update this post asap so look out for it.