Vacation Day 10-1: Cafe Bong

Another quality day here. The flight for the US leaves Friday night, so I'm eagerly awaiting seeing the family once again. 

Wasu's moving up in the world once again, for we now have a new coffee house in town, Cafe Bong. It opened on Christmas Eve in what was once a run-down bar on the roundabout. Apologies for delays in writing about it; I didn't notice it until last week and didn't remember to snap a picture until today. There would have been a picture of the interior, but for whatever reason they were closed tonight, so there went my plans to sip tea and write in there tonight.

Cafe Bong has what may be the best atmosphere of any cafe in Cheorwon. In the words of Rochelle, from the fancy and darker decor of the interior to the 2nd floor location,  it's going for a Seoul feel. Indeed, the inside feels classier than the local Tous Les Jours or Paris Baguette thanks to the lighting. The place would make a good hangout; indeed, the housewives of Wasu have already begun converging on it, for now they can sip their lattes in style. 

Rochelle and I stopped by and picked up after-dinner tea and hot chocolate on the weekend. Both drinks went down well. I'll be stopping by Cafe Bong again because the tea's good and they serve tasty-looking giant slices of bread with honey or chocolate topping. Bong doesn't appear to sell any other foods, so TLJ or PB have the edge for food yet..

Notes:

• I was happy to see that one of my incoming HS students is working there as a barista. She's not even a freshman and her working life's already begun.

• Wasu history 101: Kirsten's fond of noting that when she arrived in Wasu in February of 2010, Wasu didn't have any coffee shops at all.* Options for "real" coffee that wasn't instant or canned consisted of going to Seoul or Chuncheon. She often said she'd get a Starbucks coffee as soon as she arrived in Chuncheon because she craved regular coffee that badly.
• The Tous Les Jours and the Paris Baguette arrived between then and August 2011 when Pete, Gabe, and I arrived here, but as a point of information, Paris Baguette didn't upgrade itself from bakery to bakery-cafe until 2012.
• Wasu history 101 part II: A Lotteria got built last year as well. It's the Korean equivalent of McDonald's. The best thing about it is that it gives high school kids jobs.