Camera Cafe 꿈꾸는사진기 - Dreamy Camera Cafe just outside Seoul, South Korea
I am rather late to writing this blog post and sharing these pictures (in the time since I visited Dreamy Camera Cafe, Farmboy and I...and our pup Shadow, moved back home to South Africa, settled on the family dairy farm and I had a baby! Whew...An awful lot considering these photos were only taken a year and a half ago!).
A quick recap if you're reading this post and wondering what on earth we were doing in South Korea...
Farmboy and I moved to South Korea for our second stint of teaching English (the first was for a year in 2010 when we had just started dating, and ended up living in Daejeon...our second round we returned as a married couple and were placed in the teeny tiny rural town of Buan...which you can read more about by scrolling through the posts here:
One of our absolute favourite things about Korea has got to be their plethora of themed cafes.
Koreans sure do love their coffee, and what they love more than good coffee, is a cute place to enjoy it in.
I'm linking below, some of the other cafes we visited (there's a racoon cafe, dog cafe, cat cafe, flower cafe, teapot cafe...the list goes on!):
And now back to Dreamy Camera Cafe...
The cafe is situated outside of Seoul, and isn't that easy to get to. We had in a car while living in Korea and so were able to get drive there ourselves. But, the owners are so friendly, and before we had a car I had been in touch with them and they had given me really good directions for using public transport. I'll put those details at the end of this post.
We took our pup, Shadow (he went everywhere with us) and he had a ball meeting the two local pups who live with their owners (the camera cafe owners) in a sweet little house next to the cafe. You'll find them in one of the polaroid pictures below.
The cafe itself is set inside a model of an actual classic Rolleiflex twin-lens camera. The cafe is a double storey building, with seating upstairs as well as downstairs. Every square inch of the cafe is filled with cameras and camera paraphanalia. It's a photographers dream!
It ended up taking us a good hour and a half driving through the peak holiday traffic in Seoul, and so we spent the morning at the cafe, drinking coffee, eating cheesecake and being served delicious homemade pink lemonade! The owners, Park Sung-hwan and his wife Kwak Myung-hee began construction on their dream in 2012, and first opened their doors a year later.
Both Sung-hwan & Myung-hee built the cafe in the hopes that people would visit for longer than the time it takes them to snap a photo in front of the iconic building and gulp down a cup of coffee. They encourage their customers to spend time dreaming and leave inspired to bring their dreams to life.
They even take photos of their customers with a polaroid camera, encourage them to write down their dreams and hopes for the future. Here is our Bucket List...and I often look back at it with fond memories of our visit to the cafe:
They even take photos of their customers with a polaroid camera, encourage them to write down their dreams and hopes for the future. Here is our Bucket List...and I often look back at it with fond memories of our visit to the cafe:
Farmboy and I fit right in with our collection of cameras (I had my Nikon d750...used for the photos here in this post, and my polaroid, and Farmboy came armed with his GoPro).
If you're looking for a fun daytrip from Seoul, I highly recommend heading out to Dreamy Camera Cafe. Take a book, your journal or even your knitting, and spend a few hours in the peaceful surroundings. The cafe is also just as magical in each of the 4 seasons. Head on over to their Instagram account (click here) to see more photos of the cafe in the snow, the blossoms and the Autumn leaves.
Address:
341-13 Jungwon-ri, Yongmun-myeon, Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Phone:
+82 31-771-3264
Opening Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Closed on Mondays, Sundays & Public Holidays
Directions:
If you come from seoul, there are two ways.
1. Use the Subway:
Jungang line station (youngsan, oksu, wangsimni, Cheongnyangni station...etc).
Transfer to the Jungang line and go Yongmun station(용문역).
Get out from yongmun station(용문역) Exit 1
* 2hrs need from Chungnyangni station to Yongmun station
2. Use Mugunghwa Train (usually once every two hrs)
You can only start your journey at Cheongnyangni station.
Cheongnyangni station (use the subway) and take the Mugunghwan Train to Yongmun station.
It takes 40minutes from Cheongnyangni station to Yongmun station.
At Youngmun station, take exit 1.
Take a taxi (it's 7km to the cafe). Tell/Show the taxi driver "중원리 꿈꾸는 사진기"
+-10,000won need (about US$ 9~10)
Find the camera cafe online:
More posts on life in South Korea: