If you haven’t already heard about it, Kakaotalk is a Korean messaging app! I love it so much because you can customize the chatrooms: backgrounds, bubbles, and font and use cute emoticons! I wish it were popular in the US because I have so many cute stickers that I would send my friends.
In Korea is the #1 messaging app, another popular one being LINE. The Kakao app grew into a much bigger company and has since then released multiple apps including one in Korea called KakaoTaxi that is similar to Uber.
In Korea, the cafe culture is very strong and many stores have their own cafes. I went to the Kakao store in Hongdae and upstairs to the Ryan Cafe, named after their most popular character. Their desserts are super Instagrammable. For more Instagrammable desserts in Seoul, check out this post!
The KakaoTalk characters became such a hit in Korea that Kakao has their own store filled with merchandise with the Kakao Friends faces on them. For example: cute towels, magnets, and phone cases!