Korea Kids Cafes: Tayo The Friendly Bus

When it comes to finding fun things in Seoul to do with kids, I’ve found there are plenty and kids cafes are among them. After Pororo and the toys and kids cafe visits that came with it, just as quickly the little one LOVED Tayo the Little Bus and all of his friends. Pretty soon we had learned about loads of vehicles and they had names too! Walking down the street, green buses became Rogi and blue buses became Tayo.

Not only did our daughter think they became Tayo, but the Korean government has literally placed stickers on local buses to give them Tayo’s eyes and mouth so they literally look like gigantic Tayos, Rogis and more rolling up at bus stops. Anyway, if you have young kids in Korea, you’ll definitely want to check out the fun Tayo Kids Cafes. If they love the transportation vehicle characters, they’ll love these fun places to play in Korea.

Here’s what you need to do about Tayo:

• Basic Info
• Who is Tayo the Little Bus
• Why do buses in Korea have stickers to look like faces?
• Tayo the Little Bus Characters
• The Tayo Kids Cafe

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Basic Info

Locations: There are SO many Tayo Kids Cafes (타요키즈카페). Check out their website below for an updated list of locations or just type that Korean name above into your favorite GPS app to find the nearest one.

Admission:

• Children: W10,000 (members) – W12,000 (non-members) for two hours; Doesn’t seem to cost anything to join the membership so join and get a discount.
• Adults accompanying children: W3,000
• Children under 12 months are free (snap a picture of their passport or birth certificate to show if asked which is common in Korea.)

Hours: Most locations open at 10:00am and close at 8:00pm, but this may vary slightly depending on location.

Website: http://tayokidscafe.co.kr/

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Who is Tayo the Little Bus

Tayo the Little Bus is a Korean animated children’s television series based on vehicles that can talk that began being aired in 2010. Now the series is available in Korean, English, Spanish, Turkish and Russian and is definitely one of the biggest hits in terms of children’s animations that has come from Korea.

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Why do buses in Korea have stickers to look like faces?

This actually started out as a short term transportation initiative back in 2014 to teach children how to use the bus but it was a massive success. And when I say massive, I mean the very first day 40,000 people rocked up from around the country to use these initial buses that were only being used downtown around Gwanghwamun Square. Since then, the initiative has been expanded and continues and not just downtown but around the country.

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Tayo the Little Bus Characters

Main Characters:

Supporting Characters:

• Hana: She is the (human) mechanic that keeps all of the vehicles in working order and is a bit of a mother-like character.
• Citu: This red double-decker city tour bus (City Tour=Citu) is the teacher, father-figure for the group of main characters who are learning how to do their jobs.
• Nuri: She is a nice orange taxi who met Tayo in the very first episode. She often comes around to visit everyone.
• Rookie & Pat: These two are always together since Rookie is the police officer who is new to the job and he rides in Pat, the experienced police car character who takes his job far too seriously.
• Speedy: This red car is often getting in trouble for going to fast and speeding down the road. Modeled after a Porsche Targa FS, he has been known to get tickets and get into accidents due to his speedy urges.
• Shine: This yellow car modeled after a Mercedes SLK R171 coupe is a bit egotistical and has to show off. Speed and Shine are often racing and trying to one-up each other which usually ends in citations or accidents.
• Heart: Who used to be brown, but becomes pink, is Hana’s helper.
• Peanut: Peanut is an eco-friendly bus that was introduced in later seasons.
• Toto: A yellow tow-truck.
• Air: A red helicopter who is part of the rescue team and assists in tall building fires.

• Bongbong: A bright blue baby minibus modeled after a VW minibus.
• Carry: A vehicle transport truck that is a mother or baby-sitter figure. She was introduced carrying Bongbong in the beginning.
• Champ: Turquoise countryside land rover.
• Cooku: White and blue countryside bus.
• Toni: A little truck who is very conscientious of the road rules and lets others know if they’re breaking them.
• Alice: The ambulance that is partnered up with Frank.
• Frank: The firetruck who takes his job seriously and works with Alice.
• Big: A giant container truck that the buses were scared of at first.
• Billy: A bulldozer who works on the construction site.
• Poco: An excavator that works on the construction site.
• Chris: A cement truck that works on the construction site.
• Max: A dump truck that works on the construction site.
• Met: A subway train who is very knowledgeable and the buses ask him for help with problems from time to time because he knows about everything.

• Nana: A bus that lives in the countryside.
• Wondie: An old blue bus who was scrapped.
• Ractor: A red tractor who lives in the countryside.
• Rubby: A road cleaning vehicle.
• Aratcha: A pick-up truck.
• Tramy: A tram.
• Kinder: The little school bus for the kindergarten. This one is especially exciting for our little one since she gets to ride in her own kinder every day coming home.
• Joey: A magician who appears in multiple shows and surprises everyone with his magic tricks.
• Fire Ball: A superhero character.
• Princess Ray: A princess of Planet Clover that Tayo meets when he rockets up to space in his dreams. She reappears in later episodes.
• Bully: A space pirate who they fight with in space.
• Reo: A superstar car.
• Andy: A painter that gets in trouble for painting bus signs and then becomes a local street artist.

Compared to Pororo, the character list in Tayo is much more substantial, but as the kids grow they get better and better memories, so learning ALL of them is no problem for our little two year old.

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The Tayo Kids Cafe

The cafes we have visited themed in all things Tayo have been pretty substantial in size and offer toys in varying sizes for a few different age groups. Tayo is popular with children from about one to kindergarten and the tayo cafes are made generally for them. From the popular bouncy mats to small, medium and large buses in character motifs, the kids really are gobsmacked when they go into a Tayo cafe.

Varying based on size and shape of space, there are a few things that may or may not be inside.

• Tayo’s Car Zone is a short course where children can hop aboard a child-size friendly bus character and ride around. These are for children a bit older and able to control a large kid-vehicle.
• The Rubi’s Boong Boong Car Zone is for younger children. The little buses are smaller and are powered via the children pushing with their feet on the ground.
• Bully’s Spaceship is a sensory play area with neon lights flashing and shining and padded flooring for a little dance party inside.
• There is a cinema for children that want to take a little rest and just watch some Tayo episodes called Ray’s Cinema Zone and then once they’re done resting they can head into a ball pit called Bully Shows Up.
• There are padded areas with mini camping/grill sets for children to play “house” and there are play stations with the buses and parking lots and streets.
• There’s also a party zone called Joey’s Party Zone that can be rented for private parties.

Of course, there is also a food zone where parents might rest and there are TV sets showing all corners of the play zones to keep on eye on children while also eating a good meal. The menu has items such as hamburger steak, pork sirloin cutlets, oven baked chicken and honey bread as well as some pizzas and fried rice dishes. For brunch there are also some chicken nuggets, ciabatta sandwiches, croque monsieurs and cookies and sausages too. The food ranged in price from W5,500 to W15,000. I have to say, the meal was actually better than I’ve had at some other kids cafes, so I appreciated that on my end.

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There is so many things to do with kids in Seoul and visiting the numerous kids cafes is just one of them.

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