The more observant of you may have noticed that we are not actually in Bangkok anymore; for the past few days we have been in Seoul. Obviously once we arrived in Korea we planned to inspect their cat cafés, the Koreans having come up with the idea in the first place. So we went to Hongdae and promptly found a promising cat café (I don’t remember what it was called but it was opposite a makeup store) but! it turned out they had a no pre-schoolers policy which, they determined, applied to Harriet. We were sad but not that sad as evidently there are eighty thousand cat cafés in Hongdae, a number which does not include the sheep cafés. But: a Korean family who were also trying to go the cat café decided to take pity on us and suggested that they give us a ride to another cat café in Sinchon. So we did that, which was a little odd, but they did seem determined that we go to a cat café. We explained it was not that big a deal, we could just walk down Chan Road to our local cat café, but that meant nothing. So we got in their car and drove to Sinchon, which is an adjoining neighborhood. Yes, this seemed strange, but they did very much want Harriet to see some cats.

We arrived in Sinchon and went to the Sinchon cat café – which did seem grander than the last one – but they also had a no children policy, which they were not willing to relax. So we can at least report that Korean cat cafés are more selective than Thai ones. The Korean family was extremely apologetic that their plan to drive us to a new cat café had not worked out and they offered to drive us to another one, but we said no, it’s fine. But they were apologetic and took us out for yoghurt shaved-ice and then to see all the sights of Sinchon. The people of Seoul, it should be said, are extremely hospitable.

We spent most of the rest of that day watching a street dance troupe which enraptured Harriet; she got an offer to join, but that would have meant giving up her lucrative powdered milk modeling career in Bangkok. Also there are no pictures of any of this because I hurled my phone at the ground, making it unresponsive; however, a shop near the Nowon subway station fixed it for under $10, so we’re back in business, though you don’t get to see what it looks like to be thrown out of a Korean cat café, who is doubtless what you wanted to see.