Signs of Spring

1) Blossoms - if you've come to the Seoul Patch with any regularity, you have seen hundreds of flower photos. You're about to see a few more, these from my school, and the hillside directly across the street.


2) Baseball - went to a preseason game a little while ago in Incheon with an old buddy and a pair of diminutive tagalongs. On the promenade from the station to the stadium (or vice versa) there is a series of engineered photo-ops. I think this is the best one.


3) Soccer - though FC Seoul is off to a really terrible start (they finally won a game last week against Pohang, on their seventh try!) going to soccer games here is easy and fun!


4) Student elections - many schools seem to elect a new student government every semester, and while they enjoin their friends to cheer for them at the school gate in the days leading up to the poll, they put a lot of effort into a poster which identifies their main platform planks:

2018 Yeouido Flower Festival

Despite the impoverished levels of attention the Seoul Patch receives from Tuttle these days, it would be more than remiss of me to skip the annual Yeouido cherry blossom festival post. The festival officially opened on Saturday, but the weekend weather was less than ideal, so I finally got there yesterday after school. There were plenty of people but nothing like what you would have seen on, say, Saturday at 2 PM. The cherry blossoms don't really care how many people are looking at them, they bloom anyway.


The cherry trees run around the north end of Yeouido Island, immediately adjacent to the Korean Legislature facilities. This time, the gates were open, so I wandered through the park area and got a couple of shots of statuary:


That last one is just titled 대한국인 Korean Person.

Before I come to the final, obligatory shot of myself on the sidewalk with the cherries and the city blossoming behind me, I want to point out to anyone that's new around here that they can see lots of pictures of each previous festival since 2009: just click on the cherry blossom festival link in the tag cloud on the right side.
In fact, that might be a good idea, because a) this was a quick visit, and b) I came directly from work so I did not bring my Nikon. All these pics came from my iPhone.

겸재정선 미술관 Gyeom Jae Jeong Seon Art Museum

The folks in my office (the ones who couldn't find an excuse to get out of it, anyway) went on a "team building" activity yesterday afternoon to this art museum in the Magok area, near Yangcheon Hanggyo station on Line 9. I think we're supposed to do this once every couple of months--we get to leave school early, and if we finish by quitting time I'm fine with it. And in this case I'm glad I went.

I had never heard of the artist 정선 Jeong Seon, nor of this whole business of attaching a nickname to the front of them--his is Gyeom Jae 겸재 but no one was able tell me the meaning, though Wiki says it's "humble study". He is a pretty important figure, his dates are 1676 to 1759, and he is considered the master of Korean "true-view" painting. Here's a blurb (and just about the only English in the place):

Its importance can be found in the following aspects: First, Jeong Seon was the protagonist of true-view painting which became an important genre of landscape painting in Korea. Second, Jeong Seon was an advocate of the beauty of Korea. Third, Jeong Seon was the painter who brought true-view painting to perfection. Fourth, Jeong Seon's true-view painting style had an immense influence on many painters of following generations who may even be considered as belonging to School of Jeong Seon.

Much Korean art of the Joseon time was strongly influenced by Chinese styles, but Jeong Seon is reputed to have departed from tradition, and actually go outside with his easel and brushes to observe nature, and record it.


The museum picks up on this idea, and has a display of replicas of some of his works paired with the actual scene they are based on:


Jeong Seon also became a government dignitary, holding the office of hyollyeong of Yangcheon (west stream) and going around the area painting landscapes. This is the region that is modern day Gangseo-gu where I live currently, and the ground floor of the museum has a diorama of the area and some history of Gangseo.


The ground floor also houses temporary exhibits by Korean artists. One show, by Lee Jeong-hyeon 이정현, features landscapes that betray the workmen's tools that go into creating them:


Another series, by Lee Ye-ji 이예지, seemingly features bodies vaguely writhing around in who-knows-what:


And here's one more gallery:

Pyeongchang in Seoul

When I went to the US Embassy to collect my new passport, prior to my trip on Wednesday to Cambodia, I noticed that KT (Korea Telecom) had some kind of whiz-bang Pyeongchang Olympics-related activity at Gwanghwamun and so I decided to see what was happening. When you come out the Gwanghwamun madang exit, your ordinary breath-taking vista is a bit obscured by the building:


Inside, you can do various VR Winter Olympic-style events such as hockey (not pictured), bobsled, torch relay and video games that operate by just waving your hands around:


Down the square a little way, you encounter the souvenir shop, suitably overpriced:


And finally, one of those cut-out photo-op things that I find so irresistible:


I know it's been a long time, but I am happy to be back in the Seoul Patch. Perhaps you can hold on until I return from Cambodia for more. I promise, there will be more.

Sindorim 연탄 Museum or something

I met The Stumbler for lunch today at Sindorim. Sindorim, for the uninitiated, is the location of one of Seoul's busiest subway stations, on one end of which is TechnoMart, a ten story mall, largely dedicated to electronic goods, and on the other end of which is D-cube City, an enormous "lifestyle" mall, which also contains offices and a tony Sheraton Hotel.

It is also, as The Stumbler pointed out, the location of a small, but interesting, outdoor "museum" or display relating to the production of yeontan, 연탄, which are the "Korean Kingsford", charcoal briquets, commonly found in Korean barbeque restaurants (the computer has tried to correct my spelling of both briquet and barbeque, but frankly I don't believe it).


Tucked away in a little corner of the D-cube City side's park, it actually has good English-language signage (above) explaining that the briquets, or 연탄, were first manufactured by Daesung Corporation as a result of the government's desire to slow the decimation of the country's forests for firewood in the middle of the twentieth century. Nowadays most home heating is done by gas. Daesung had a manufacturing plant in Sindorim--the "rim" part means "forest", but I don't know what the Sindo means.

First, coal is brought in and pulverized in the hammer mill:


Then it's sorted:


And then formed by pressing:


Here's the final product.


Interesting ten minutes.

Interesting Seoul Patch fact: The Sindorim Technomart post linked to at top is the seventh most visited page on this blog.

13th Yeouido Spring Blossom Festival

There are only so many good photo ops at the Cherry Blossom Festival, so I have used this one virtually every year--it has cherry blossoms, the Han River and the Seoul skyline. Of course, the flowers are the star of the show:


There are also street performers:


...art:


...a "powder room" (new this year):


...and an old-timey coffee shop (new last year):


There are also some other good photo ops:


...participation opportunities:


...and other sorts of flowers besides ornamental cherries:


The dates for this year's festival are April 1 to April 10, so you have one more chance!