Meerkat Friends was the second pet cafe we went to as it was near Samoyed Cafe ‘Winters Village’. This place has a range of animals, meerkats, foxes, wallabies, genets, cats, dogs, and raccoons. They do have an Instagram account, which you should check out!
Again, it is a place for the animals to roam around and not a place for you to sit and drink. They do sell bottles/canned drinks if you wish to have a drink.
They are open from 1.30pm to 8pm daily (please check with them). The nearest subway is Sangsu Station (Subway Line 6) or Hong-Ik University in Hongdae, using KakaoMap and Naver Map, which provides reliable navigation around South Korea. In fact, around the Hongdae area, there are several pet cafes dotted around.
This cafe is situated on the second floor. To access the cafe, go up the open staircase on the side of the building – it’s pretty obvious. Then proceed to lock your shoes and bags in the lockers (free to use), and change into their slippers. The indoor cloth slippers can be moist, hence it is best to bring spare socks on a rainy day.
You have to pay the entrance fee of 15,000 KRW (approx £9.10) before going into the play area. The first thing you notice is the large play area with a trampoline and climbing tower for the animals. Each day, a different group of animals roam around the play area, whilst the rest will be caged. On the day we visited, it was the foxes’ day. The foxes are very active and the noise they can make a very high-pitched noise. There were also sleepy raccoons and a few meerkats on the second floor.
After taking photos with the foxes, we proceeded upstairs to the third level to meet the rest of the animals. The wallabies and cats were roaming around peacefully up here. They have plenty of things to play with and the staff will offer you dry kibble to feed them.
We then waited to meet the meerkats in individual cubicles. The staff would give you a short briefing and you are required to remove all jewellery, wallet and empty your pockets. We were then allowed to go into the cubicle to meet the meerkats. Each of us had a cloth to cover our legs. This is to prevent the meerkats from scratching our legs. They did try it with me and it was so painful because of their long claws. The session lasts for 10 minutes. It was fun and enjoyable.
My daughter was disappointed that it wasn’t the raccoon day as she would love to stroke one. Also, we didn’t anticipate that many shops close on Mondays (should have checked but the rainy day changed our schedule). Hence we didn’t manage to visit a raccoon cafe!