Celebrating your favorite K-pop idol’s birthday is so much more fun in Korea. Dedicated fans cooperate with Korea cafe’s to hold an event that can run a few days. They decorate the cafe beautifully with beautiful photos/collages of them and all things that can be related or reminded of them. My favorite K-pop idol is Felix from Stray Kids, and luckily his birthday would happen while I’m studying abroad in South Korea!
I was able to find the cafes solely through Twitter. A good thing is that you can search key words to find tweets that include it. The tweets for cafe events for K-pop idols usually include cupholder (컵홀더), so I would just put Felix’s name (also in Korean) and “cupholder” (컵홀더) and as you scroll you will see accounts promoting the cafe events they are holding in the form of a preview photo. It would include the the cup design, cafe name, cafe address, food/drink sets available for purchase (in order to get a decorated cup), freebies, and sometimes even lucky draw items! Luckily, I also found a photo of a list of all the cafes holding Felix cafe events, which made the process so much easier.
I noticed a lot of them are usually located in Hongdae (shopping area) so it’s nice that you can just go to multiple cafes easily in walking distance, instead of having to travel far. There are actually also a few that do special frame photobooth cuts (there are many photobooth places in Hongdae), so you can also commemorate the day with a printed photobooth photo (around 2000-4000 won) if you want. I tried the lucky draw in a few of the cafes and I found it so fun and cool. Not all of them have it, but a good amount of them do. They usually are 2000 won a ticket, and you get to scratch off the code yourself which is a nice experience. Most of the lucky draw goods are things that the cafe event maker had custom manufactured, so everything was very much Felix themed or related to Felix. I had managed to get a glass mug, keychain, notepad, fan, sticker sheet, and many many photocards.
All the sets usually come with freebies of stickers or photocards, so you’re never leaving with just the decorated cup. Sometimes they would also have things up for sale if you wanted to buy other Felix themed merch. I had remembered seeing pouches, photocard holders, banners, fans, all those accessory/stationary related things that can become Felix themed. Visiting all of the Felix birthday cafes felt like an exhibition, shop, and cafe all in one.
Other than cafes, I had also visited a movie room in Lotte Cinema that was decorated for his birthday! Pictures of him were professionally put on the walls (like wallpaper). The movies available were only in Korean, but I just went anyway because I wanted to see. At the back of the movie theatre were actually freebies, so you don’t walk out with nothing for this theater event too. I also happened to see a few subway ads and huge banners wishing him a happy birthday with his photos. I really enjoyed the time I spent visiting and seeing all the special events for his birthday. I recommend anyone who has a favorite K-pop idol to visit their birthday cafes when they happen.
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