Period: March 1 – August 25, 2013
Weekly Schedule: 8AM – 5PM every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s a 3 hour bus ride.
Route: Departs Donghwa Duty Free Shop in Seoul Gwangwhamun and arrives at Jeonju Hanok Village in North Jeolla Province (Jeolla-buk do).
Maximum People: Each bus holds up to 40 people.
How to apply: Jeonju Chess Tours or call the North Jeolla Province Hotline: +82-63-1330.
Don’t forget the video.
Blueberry Crepe Cake
Many Korean bakeries and pastry shops make fantastic birthday cakes. While a bit expensive, they include tall candles, matches, and a plastic cutting knife upon request. A complete birthday set!
Prices for premium cakes range from 20,000-40,000Won (approx. $20-40). My favorite is green tea cake.
For those visting Seoul, Gangnam District is a must-see neighborhood that offers trendy places to eat and shop. Psy’s Gangnam Style put the district on the international map by having fun with it’s upper class, but it’s also respected for it’s historical sites. It total, we’ve covered 13 different locations in this district throughout this series. This article focuses on Nonhyeondong’s Furniture Street, an upscale neighborhood in Gangnam with high-end contemporary and traditional furniture. It’s worth a visit.
Here’s a free e-book published by the Gangnam district office.
Gangnam’s Top 21 Destinations
Emoticons are an important part of text messages and emails in Korea. People use them to soften their words, express emotion, and generally find polite and indirect ways of asking/saying something respectfully. We’ve covered some of the Korea ones-see examples below. These can be written using Korean or English letters.
Korean emoticons
TT – eyes crying (describing a sad situation)
^^ – eyes up (making something seem light or expressing happiness-useful for asking someone to do something for you)-similar to 🙂
OTL-from the left side, the O is a head touching the floor, T is the body with hands to the floor, and L is the legs kneeling. Means you are banging your head on the ground when you feel frustrated or disappointed.
hh or hhh – Soft laugh (joking together with someone but not directed at either person)
Kk or kkk – When you make a joke at someone’s expense (about them) (k is supposed to be the sound of laughter)
For many Western adults, emoticons are considered childish or too cute, and except for the smile/frown/sly faces, they’re infrequently used. Check out this link. It’s supposed to be humorous, but I can honestly see a use for some of these in Western emails and messages.^^
One of the many Korean flags seen along Nonhyeon Rd in Seocho-gu, Seoul.
This weekend, flags were placed along the trunk streets of Seoul in honor of the March, 1 1919 Korean Independence Movement and Park Geun-Hye’s Inauguration Ceremony. Taegukgi (태극기) is the name of the Korean flag.
The holiday commemorates the quintessential non-violent demonstration of Koreans against Japanese colonial rule via a Declaration of Independence. Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910-1945.
The recently re-designed $256 million Seoul City Hall opened on August 27,2012 after three years of construction. The winning team of designers, iArc Architects, were selected from a competition. There’s an interesting contrast between the colonial Japanese era building, built in 1926, and the newly constructed glass building.
Interesting fact: The expansion consists of 7,000 glass panes that were later found to break city codes written for energy efficiency.
I like the contrast, but there were local TV reports claiming that many people felt that the new design didn’t have the proper harmony with the area or the existing structure.