When I lived in Montreal I only bought two plants. One was a green leave type of plant with four little trunks intertwined, and the other was a plant with weird bunches of tiny pink hard petal flowers. The first one lost three trunks in the first year I had it. Now only has one. The second grew tall and less and less stuffy, so that it now looks like a kind of cactus. I figured I really didn't have any gift with greens. They didn't die though.
I wasn't completely wrong, but neither was I completely right. Thing is that I live in North America. Thus, the dry weather (yes, even in Montreal) is not really good for Asian plants. Yup. Without knowing, I obviously had to have chosen Asian plants. I am thinking it must be Karma. What do they say in Chinese culture? If you are bad to someone and owe them big time, they will be reborn as your sons or daughters. I think I was really bad to Asia in a previous life, seen that unknowingly everything drags me towards it, I spend all my money and time for it....
Anyways, I discovered that those plants can grow to huge bushy flowery plants in Asia, and neither really look like the ones I have home. Poor babies (see picture above for pink flowers one). I see my pink plant everywhere in Korea lately. I think it must be an easy-to-take-care-of kind of plant. I don't see the green one as often.
Trève de bavardage.
Anne of green gable - Coffee Shop
I have been going around coffee shops lately and taken many pictures in order to make small blog entries like this one, but never took the time to write. It's hard to keep focused when you are as lazy as I am. I can add the fact that since last week, my wifi connection has been really crappy and so I was never able to write at home (not that I usually really write a lot at home in general but it must be psychological: if I don't have Internet at home, I don't want to go out in a coffee shop to write. And the opposite is sadly also true :P).
I came across this one coffee shop in my very first visit to the Other Side (of Dongtan) but there were no cute waiter so I kept looking (in the end, I still have to find a coffee shop where there is a cute waiter, but that's another story).
Anyways, I finally got to try this coffee shop, and immediately regretted not going before. It's really really close to the kind of atmosphere I am looking for in a coffee shop. I have only been once, because I refrain from going again: there are so many coffee places here that I am afraid I'll miss a good opportunity if I stick to one. Which is also a shame because that prevents me from becoming a cool Habituée of any of those places. Also, after a few coffee, they usually have a free coffee on the house, so that would also save me some money. I gave up on the thought of saving any money here. Not going to work. I am never so good at spending than when I am craving coffee in here. Or shopping. But lately my budget does not allow me much shopping ( hence, my craving for coffee, va chercher pourquoi).
After trying a couple of places in Korea, I found out a couple of things that make a place better than normal coffee places.
1. Big baskets you can take to put your purse and personal belongings instead of letting them sit on the floor by you or squeezing them behind you on a chair.
Some places I went to had large benches with an open space under them to put the basket in, other, like this coffee shop, let you the choice of using them or not by staking them near the paying counter.
2. Different settings in the coffee shop, giving you the choice of how you will take you time there.
There is the usual 2 or 4 places table setting. That's what you can find pretty much everywhere. Most people end up sitting there, because it's simple and clean, and you can go with many people without being squeezed in any kind of way.
Some coffee shops have a sort of corner with a more intimate setting, with differently shaped tables (sometimes antique tables, of writing corners and the like) so that going there with many people might be inconvenient, but making it feel less awkward when you go alone.
Some places have a couple of tables outside, though in this setting the tables are rarely taken, seen as there are a lot of mosquitoes lately and people sort of freak out about being bitten here. Dunno why. Maybe I should look up some info on the mosquitoes in Korea one more time... Having a terrasse style setting makes it appealing from the outside though, usually, the coffee shops that grasp my attention the quickest are the ones that have a terrasse.
The last type of setting I like, it the half-second floor. Usually, the coffee shops - especially in Dongtan - are quite large and take a full first floor, so they ceiling is usually pretty high. So to add up a little bit of depth to the place, some coffee shops have added a small staircase leading to a usually open mezzanine type no-shoes sitting-on-the-floor space. Those place usually have cushions and are very tempting, as you feel like you can just have your drink, write a little and lie down on the couches to rest and waste the day away.
Anne of green gable has all those settings.
I like the old-style setting, the painted wooden doors showing the kitchen at the back, the open counter at the front, the general warmth of the place...
I obviously chose to crawl up on the mezzanine and had the cutest surprise of my life! Isn't this baby adorable? Don't you feel like getting there and fall asleep on one of its feet? I did. But then, a couple just butted in and screwed the atmosphere. Bear got shy and it didn't happen.
Surprisingly I didn't order coffee. I got a weird type of what I expected to be lemonade, but it was way too sweet for what I wanted from it. Thing is I ordered that because I also ordered a Chocolate Fondant, but it didn't quite do it's job in cutting the sugar away. It was good though. I just had an overdose of sugar...
I think this one is pretty self explanatory. If you read my blog since I got to Korea, you know that it is practically impossible to find a place that has its own toilets. The restrooms are usually shared with all the other commercial areas using the same floor in a building. Thus, they are rarely clean, and rarely have toilet paper or soap (since none of the stores want to be the one spending money for toilet paper and soap for the rest of the building, stingy Koreans). Most of the stores have a toilet paper roll inside so you need to take some paper from it as you go out. Makes it really cold/hot and uncomfortable in the worse of the winter/summer.
I actually need to go back, if only to take pictures of the toilet, that is inside the coffee shop (I only know of 2 coffee shops like that and I've seen a lot), when I used the restroom I really didn't expect that so I didn't bring my camera (who brings their cameras in bathroom right?) but the toilet looks really adorable, is clean and even has a little window. Having its own toilet in Korea is a big plus on my coffee shop rating list.
4. Having something unusual.
In my hometown there's this Café Bar called L'Abstracto, that has been open for years, is part of the best thing we have. This is the only place I know of that has this smooth atmosphere and is not a slave to its customers (that can be for the best sometimes and for the worse in other....) so waiters are really laid back and it's pleasant to go relax with either a coffee or a beer. When I was young, they had this adorable smooth white dog (man I can't recall the name... was she called Molly?) Anyways. In Ann of green gable, they have a soft eyed brown dog called Namu (which means tree in Korean). I suppose people who don't like dogs won't choose that coffee shop, or go to the mezzanine. Maybe that's why they actually have one in the first place?
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