Cafe culture in Korea

During my short holiday, once again I went to Seoul in order to get away from unbearable crowd of Japanese New Year. Korea celebrates New Year's eve and enjoys the count down in the same way as Western country and their life returns to normal from 2nd of January. So, my firt purpose was fulfilled. The second reason for this trip is to get to know some Korean people. I met my friend Patrick at his shop. Since I do not know the Korean language I had a bit difficult time to get my message across when I dropped by the first bakery. On the following day, I went into his shop near TimeSquare shopping centre: Paris baguette. I ordered cafe latte and some pastry in English and he anwered in fluent English. Since we had a lot in common such as doing the degree in an English speaking country and lived in Italy. I told him that I had a plan to visit a Spanish language institute and he replied. "I do not speak Spanish but Italian yes." "I do speak Italian as well." "Really, I haven't spoken Italian for a few years and almost no one speaks that language in Korea." So, we did quite good conversation. I promised him to return again. So I did. On the following two days, we talked a lot. On the last day, I almost spent several hours at his shop, talking and drinking espresso.

Paris Baguette is a leading bakery in Korea with a cafeteria where you can sit down to enjoy coffee. In a way, I prefered have some Korean traditional rice cake and tea. There is few cafe serve them and there is always small space and it may not allow customers to stay long. This situation is the same in Japan. Paris Baguette is the first bakery chain who offer an European cafe culture. Since I can not live without espresso, his shop became my favorite hangout during my stay in Seoul. His shop has bigger space than other Paris Baguette outlet. You can order in English and if you prefer, you can talk to Italian too. how to get there: Take the subway line 5 (purple line) to Yeongdeungpo Market (永登浦市場） and take the exit 3 and go straight to the street toward the TimeSquare and it is on the first corner on the right. You will find the following sign