Korea foo

[herveus]

I'm back from three weeks in Korea. The return involved something like 26 hours in airports or airplanes and about 30 hours with about two of sleep in bits. Yeah, I meant to do that last part so as to make readjusting my clock 14 hours back go more smoothly. We'll see just how well that works out.



Among the high points was getting to spend some time with moirinknits and Perrin. Wednesday they led me to Dongdaemun market, particularly the textile building. It's a massive warren of stalls selling all sorts of fabric and string and related products. I got some nice medium-heavy wool at one stall, then some silk.



The blue is a twill weave that Megan gets to do something with. The red is satin that I got a yard of for making unspecified stuff, including perhaps another cap of maintenance. The tan is a herringbone twill. It's actually almost a steel gray depending on the light; the reverse side is mostly light. The stripes are about 3/4 inch wide. I got a dozen yards of that.

http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k31/herveus/silk%20from%20Korea/ is the rest of the pictures of the silk shopping.

Thursday, I met with Perrin at Gyeongbokgung (palace). We toured the Folk Museum then just wandered about the palace at a leisurely pace. We arrived just in time to watch the changing of the guard. The wiseacre moment came when the two captains show their bona fides to each other. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" leapt to mind.



Wandering back from there (after a lunch of porridge), we happened on another changing of the guard at another palace in the city whose name I didn't get. Afterward, the captain was available to pose with. Note that my beard is real; his is a paste-on.



More pictures are at http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k31/herveus/Gyeongbokdong%20Palace/

I made the trip up Apsan mountain twice. There is a cable car with a restaurant atop it. Dongdongju was consumed. The view of Daegu is fairly spectacular. You can see the apartment farms -- great masses of ten-story buildings all alike. On the way up to the cable-house one passes a museum commemorating the Naktong River battle of the Korean War. There are several pieces of vintage hardware parked outside. Apsan park covers a fair piece of ground with many trails for hiking. There are numerous Bhuddist temples scattered throughout. One is right off the path to the cable-house. We happened by while the monk was blessing the day. I got a number of pictures of the temple and gave the dog some attention that it apparently doesn't get enough of.



...and http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k31/herveus/Other%20Korea/ for more photos from Apsan and Daegu. I got a tripod and played with some long exposures at night.

Korea was interesting. I'm glad to be home.

Comments

[danabren.livejournal.com]

How lovely! Great pix, amazing trip, just WOW!

(What did you bring me? *grin*)

[herveus.livejournal.com]

Nothing but pictures to stimulate lustful thoughts of fabric and whatever else the various pictures might stimulate. I didn't even bring home as much gifty loot as I wanted to, largely because I am a lousy shopper. I could have dropped a couple grand at that silk booth if I had it available to drop. Easy. I'll be trying to visit them again in January, assuming I do go back over then.

[aliwodehalle.livejournal.com]

beautiful pix, thank you for sharing!

[pedropadrao.livejournal.com]

Nifty, especially that sundial. Dials of that sort were often carved of stone by the Greeks & Romans, so seeing one in bronze is interesting.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

I think that sundial is of 19th century make, if I recall the placard correctly.

The "horizontal" lines inscribed in that dial show the month. They also had a chart showing the offset from local time to JKT. It varied from about 5 minutes to 40 minutes off depending on the time of year. Analemmas ᅣ us. (That's the Korean Jamo for "ya").

[shaunacarrick.livejournal.com]

Glad you made it back in one piece with no (apparent) transportation problems. Great photos!

[weatherman2111.livejournal.com]

Welcome home.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Glad you're home safe, and glad there were cool aspects to being over there.

[bronx-baroness.livejournal.com]

YAY! You're home! Glad that you're back!

[nostasia.livejournal.com]

Welcome home. I think the heron you took a picture of may be a Grey Heron (see Michael Todd's bird gallery (http://www.pbase.com/mctodd/image/29119872)). I'm not absolutely certain, but the two look alike.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

I think you may be right.