Moving to Seoul and working alone all day hasn’t left me with a big friend group. After all, South Korea is a foreign country, and arriving right before Covid happened at the tail end of 2019 didn’t give me the best start to curate a social calendar for a long time. Yet the friends I have made since then are so very special and dear to me.

Last year for example I made it my mission to find the best chocolate cafes in Seoul.
(This city has THE best cafe culture)

Being the chocoholic I am, I passed one or two before I found “Cacaoboom”.
It was heaven.
From the real hot chocolate to rich chocolate bark filled with nuts and fruit, and the fresh truffles were just sinful. I routinely would spend my afternoons in bliss with a book at the cafe. This was my safe place when the world got too much and I needed stress relief or just a break from my never-ending to-do list as someone who works for herself.

In the summer of last year, the worst imaginable happened though. Only months after I had found it, the cafe announced it would close its doors after 20 years. I was devastated (and subsequently went almost daily to savor the last moments).

I had shared the cafe on my Instagram stories a couple of times and as it happens, the owner of the cafe reached out in the last week of the cafe being open. She had noticed me often but never wanted to bother me in my enjoyment of her treats, if I had a moment, would I stop by? She had a gift for me.

I was stunned. I prepared a small painting on paper as my own gift for her, to show her my appreciation for her craft. When we met the next time I came to the cafe she smiled and introduced herself as Youngju. We were both ecstatic about our gifts (I got the most delicious Belgian chocolate you can imagine) and I promised I’d be back for the closing day party as well.

It wasn’t a sad affair at all.
A DJ played music, flowers gifted from happy patrons everywhere, and the biggest smile on Youngju’s face.

Closing her cafe was a hard decision but a freeing one.
She wanted to focus on teaching the art of chocolate and workshops and this chapter in her life, having a cafe, was coming to a satisfactory end. I was still sad, but I am sure I would have never met or talked to this wonderful lady if not for her bravery to embark on a new part of her life.

And this wasn’t the last day we saw each other either.
Since the cafe closed in July, she has invited me to her chocolate lab and taught me how to make her famous hot chocolate (I get the raw ingredients directly from her now to make it myself at home), I have helped her make videos for her own social media channels and we’ve talked and eaten a fair bit of chocolate together, too. I even sampled new gelato she was making with one of her students.

Why am I telling you all this (apart from it being a truly wonderful story of adult friendship)?

Because not long after we started being friends Youngju reached out and wanted to buy a painting.

She wanted to reward herself for all her hard work and so I invited her to my studio. My paintings on Instagram are fairly close to what they look like in real life, but walking through my studio, hearing the story behind each painting, seeing my works in progress and my studio space bathed in the prettiest sunlight… it’s just a different experience.

We tried different paintings on the easel for her to look at and she ended up getting one piece for herself, “Queen of the Night”, and another one for her daughter “Entwined”. I shipped it the same day via express to Canada and got the sweetest unwrapping video from her daughter only a couple of days later.

I also dropped off Youngju’s painting that evening and got another lovely warm cup of hot chocolate.

Now, if this beautiful story has not only warmed your heart, like a good cup of hot chocolate but also made you desire a stunning painting of your own?

If you're curious and want to experience the same happy feelings of happiness and be surrounded by beautiful art too,

You can find my available work at 👉www.juliabadow.com/originals-on-canvas

💫 Sometimes it's like a miracle