If you find yourself in South Korea and want a coffeeshop in which you are obliged to meditate on the ... ultimate end result of the coffee you are enjoying, you are going to want to visit the Poop Café in Seoul, or, as it is properly called in Korean,  또옹카페.

The amusing website Seoul Searching posted about the café a couple of weeks ago, and the internet is having quite a titter over it. The café does not serve poop, of course—now THAT would be a story!—but many of its offerings as well as decor resemble cute turds, simply put. Your coffee mug is likely to resemble a toilet.

Here are some highlights from the charming account by Lexi, who runs the Seoul Searching blog:

There is a tree inside decorated with colorful poop-shaped papers. Then, once you are inside, you realize that the poop-shaped papers also have adorable little faces, sneakers and handwritten messages on them from previous visitors.

Inside, the cafe is surprisingly normal. … I suppose I was hoping for more of a shock factor.

Despite the ordinary interior, I began to to find those quirky poop hidden treasures I longed for. A few squat toilets that had been turned into mini gardens occupied some floor space, porcelain cups with poops painted on them lined the shelves and colorful plush coils of “poop” could be found on tables, chairs and in little nooks and crannies. I like to get a little silly with the plush poops.

Poop Café is near Gyeongbokgung Palace, on the 4th floor of the Ssamziegil Mall.
 

 

 
More pics after the jump…......
 

 
Before coffee houses were homogenized into interchangeable Starbucks, and sucked dry of atmosphere and character, the espresso bar was a meeting place for Beats, musicians, writers, radicals and artists. Each coffeehouse had its own distinct style and clientele, and provided a much needed venue for the meeting of minds and the sharing of ambitions over 2-hour long cappuccinos.

It was the arrival in London of the first espresso machine in 1952 that started this incredibly diverse sub-culture, which became a focus for writers like Colin (Absolute Beginners) MacInness and pop stars like Tommy Steele, Billy Fury, Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde, who frequented the famous 2-i’s cafe. This beautiful, short film serves up a frothy serving of London’s cafe scene in 1959, long before Starbucks ruined it all.
 

 
Look At Life were a series of short documentary films produced in the 1960s by the Rank Organization. They were shown in British movie theaters before the main attraction. Shot in vibrant color, Look At Life often focused on ‘Swinging London’.

In these two clips we get a peek into the King’s Road fashion scene and hip London coffeehouses. Groovy.