Day 52: Meerkats and saying goodbye to the cold

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We went in search of an animal cafe. These cafes are scattered around Seoul and each has an animal speciality: dogs, cats, raccoons, meerkats, goats and so on. Where these animals come from I am not sure. We decided to go check out the meerkat cafe mainly because neither of us knew what exactly a meerkat was. For once, we found the spot without getting lost first. But I was not prepared for what we walked into. Shoes are left at the door and everyone is given slippers to wear to protect the animals. The cafe doesn’t serve food or coffee (so I decided cafe is false advertising). You can purchase bottled beverages which maintain appropriate sanitation for both the animals and humans. The first shock was the cafe had more than just meerkats; there was also foxes, cats, a raccoon, and wallabies. There was a pen of 8 to 10 baby meerkats who loved to play on the enlarged gerbil wheel. Also a pen of 10 to 12 adult meerkats who were ravenous for food, digging in the corners, under the mats, looking for any little food scrap that may be left. Part of the entrance fee was sitting in the pen with the meerkats. When in the pen, they crawled everywhere: jacket pockets, hoods, neck trying to test out what you have and what’d you let them do. The staff’s job was to make sure the animals were not over stimulated, over fed or touch prior to you sanitizing your hands. Every animal had its own time to run the floor (Except the meerkats who stayed penned up) and interact with the visitors. The highlight was the female wallaby had a baby joey still in pouch who decided to come out to see what was going on. It was the closest thing to a zoo I had been to in a long while and it gave me the same feelings ishy. No real natural habitat and limited space. I wonder what they do with the babies that continue to grow and reproduce. But some of the animals have been raised since birth because their moms had passed away and they otherwise would have been doomed. Everything has an “and.” I have had enough of South Korea’s cold and wind chilling my body and reminding me of Minnesota and it was an okay place to lay low for a few days.

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