One Month in Korea - Part 15

Back in Seoul for the last day of our Korea trip.  We went to the National Museum

사신도 the 4 gods of ancient Korea found in a Goguryeo tomb.  This is the White Tiger of the west.  I love how demented and weird by modern standards these animals look.  this looks nothing like a tiger and almost like an Asian dragon and I love it.

the Red Phoenix but not Phoenix of the south.

The blue dragon of the east.

the black turtle and snake of the north.  Also here's a rant.  The Korean internet sucks super bad.  Sure it's the most wired country in the world but their internet space sucks.  Its so hard to find information and images.  Also as an illustrator I do photo research all the time and the Korean internet is almost all small sized images, I'm talking about tiny like 400 pixels.  Also the inferior Naver/Naver Maps and Mango Plate as the Korean replacement for Google, Google Maps and Yelp are just not as good plain and simple.  Jen heard me cursing the Korean internet all trip and I'm still cursing it now when I try to find Korean stuff back in America and have to enter the Korean internet space.  Yoon argued that if Korea didn't have their protectionist agenda that includes the internet they wouldn't have been able to crawl from the ashes of the Korean war and become the economic superpower that they are now.  I get that but now can they just admit that Naver sucks and start a gov't program that encourages a culture of improving the quality of their internet content?  

DO NOT COME TOO CLOSE TO THE ART BRO!!!  I seriously want to know what this guy is.  It's the second time I've seen him in Korea and he was just labeled demon or something like that

reminds me of Neon Genesis Evangelion anime

very interesting for me seeing how these paintings on silk are done.

that's some pro overwintering protection.  They do a great job all over Korea

after meeting Yoon's cousins we were all parting ways and it was our last night and JP came out to see us so we said, hey JP did you want to get one more drink?  We went to Hongdae and then 1 drink turned into A LOT.  One place we went was this fried jun place that I had gone to years ago and they said they had no SPAM jun even though there was a pile of it outside clearly laying there.  I finally got that SPAM jun and more.  They shoved some kind of pork and tofu mixture inside those peppers even!  Look at this glorious plate.  So we had a night just like old times with JP and the poor guy had to go to work the next day and we had to go to the airport.

I love how this needs to be a sign.

I forgot to turn on the GPS at the beginning.  Here's everywhere we went in Seoul.  the upper right is Seoul National University of Science and Technology.  in the east by Cheonho Bridge was the hip hop concert.

I don't think the GPS was on when we went to Pyeongchang (winter olympics site) but there's somehow 2 photos out there to the east

and somehow the GPS says I took 4 photos near the North Korean/China border.

So that's it for Korea in 2017.  2 trips in one year has done quite a number on my pocketbook.  Jen had a bunch of Korean firsts on this trip and got to see Korean life.  I got a lot of artist inspiration.  And we got to see friend and family.  A month is a long time, it felt like a month.  More than a month and it gets into the territory of not a vacation and you don't live there so you don't really know what to do with yourself.  You can't start investing time in long term Korean life and then you've done all the tourist stuff.  So for Korea I think we'd have to do only 2 weeks max or live there for a while.  That Korean winter though..... and then we came back to New York and it turned into a horrible harsh winter with matching Korean temperatures.  Ok our once in a lifetime Korean dream is over and now it's time to get back to work!  Thanks everyone that we hung out with and thanks to the Yoos for all the breakfasts, lunches, dinners, presents, and hosting us!

Wonju Two - One Month in Korea - Part 14

ddulgae soo jae bi, its crushed up wild sesame seeds.  Also some rustic wrapped tuna kim bap rolls.

found my Einstein cover that was published a few years ago.

took the train to Wonju one more time.  Wonju has this new fish market.

still wriggling octopus tentacles, this time they were not so tough and hard to chew.

Jen's mom's ox tail soup

for some reason whatever day it was all of the Mak gook soo places were closed and drove around to like 4 places and finally found this place where it was one guy working outside and it was freezing and we asked if he was making food and he begrudgingly said ok and then he went inside the freezing restaurant that was obviously closed down for the season and fired up the stove.  It was freezing inside literally there was no heat and we sat there trying to be warm while he made this from scratch which took a while.  I wonder if this was what it was like living in Korea back in the day, because that is a horrible existence waiting for spring every harsh Korean winter.

whats that thing on the top of their house?  Buddhist?

we drank beer and played screen golf with her parents, which because #1 they are Korean and #2 their fam owns a golf course, they were very good.  Jen and I still very bad.  Its funny seeing her mom, this skinny little lady swinging a huge driver

more craft beer bought at E-mart.  7Brau and Ark Brewery

a ton of dumpling filling

the cans from Amazing Brewing.   Yuzu and Sour Yuzu ale.

One Month in Korea - Part 13

we probably worked all day until dinner time this day.  There was a predicament, there was another big Yoo family dinner at that Chinese restaurant and an interesting opportunity to see a hip hip concert cuz Hyun Jeoung works for them.  We managed to go to the dinner for an hour and see an hour of the show.  Thanks for the tickets Hyun Jeoung!

this guy was like an eminem no flash lyricist type rapper.  A few times he would crouch down and pretend like he was freestyling or raw mic'ing verses and then he would stop and say he can't go on as if to stir up some drama.

These guys were my favorite of the night, YTC4LYF.  They were kinda like Flatbush Zombies, jumping around and rugged and raw and rowdy.  What they didn't have was American style swagger so this whole concert was funny to me.  Korean hip hop, bangin' beats, questionable swagger. The scene is funny to Western raised peeps like myself. Dank beats and flows (The Korean language lends itself well to rapping). I don't speak enough Korean to get most of the lyrical content. But the swagger, oh the swagger is hilarious to this American. They did their thing despite one guy looking like a Korean nightclub waiter from the 90s and another looking like a jumping spider(I get it it's cool to Koreans but hilarious to me). This is a complicated cultural onion. Can America call istelf the gatekeeper of hip hop(and other things)? Can you be hip hop if a large chunk of what makes up the lyrical content of American hip hop is illegal/doesn't exist in your country? Also wtf everyone was so we'll behaved at this concert and they served no alchohol, only mountain dew as given out cuz they were the sponsor.  WTF!

This guy who looks like a Korean John Denver sweet boy would make his voice get really weird and demonic  

yes thank you!  I wish NYC had this so you're not freezing in the summer time.

Next day we went to Amazing Brewing, a place Stacy and Phil wanted to go to so we drank a few in their memory.

They started just a year ago and we were there for a while and ended up meeting Taekyung the owner who came to talk to us.

638 days, the amount of mandatory Korean military service every Korean dude has to do.

can art by Korean artists Zipcy

we ended up buying a lot of cans of their yuzu beer and here they are putting the lids on the cans.

 

On to Hongdae, I don't know if all these nighlife pics are the same night or various nights or what.  Korean friend chicken is the bomb although I don't know why this one was flaming.

just me and Jen at Noraebang until 4am.  When in Korea

a super authentic Australian meat pie shop, the originators of meat pies (Steven hates that).

lunch at this hidden really cheap place in Hongdae was like $6 .

Cheongnyun Dakbal by our airbnb in Yeonnamdong, a chicken feet and old school pojangmacha themed place that was open late and full of people and fun.  They even have oden fish cakes in kettles