Pictures from South Korea!
Rather than write an exhaustive account of the trip, I'mma post some photos and say a little bit about them. Hope y'all enjoy!
One of the first places we visited was Gamcheon Culture Village, which was very enjoyable. The place had an affinity with the Little Prince, claiming that he had visited there in his travels - since TODS and I translated a number of graphic novels about the Little Prince from French to English, the character holds a special place in our hearts, so we *had* to get our picture taken with various murals there! I thought this one came out especially well.
On the way up to the Seoul Tower, we passed a number of railings to which people had attached padlocks to represent their love for the K-Pop group BTS (a.k.a. "love locks"). I noticed that there were far more locks than room to attach them directly; a lot of people were attaching their locks to other fans' locks, so that the fans supported one another in their mutual love of the fandom. So the locks struck me as a symbol of one of the best and most beautiful things about any fandom. So I got my picture taken there.
We visited the royal palace one day and the students were very excited because they all wanted to rent and wear traditional clothing (hanbok), and somehow they coaxed TODS and me to join them. Since they're marketed to tourists, the rental stores carry large sizes, thank goodness. TODS looks very much himself (IMHO) as a Confucian scholar; they didn't have scholar clothes in my size, so in this picture, I am a female scholar (like "Kim Yoon Shik" in Sungkyunkwan Scandal) undercover as a princess. ;-) The students were pretty excited about visiting the palace, not only because they wanted to wear the costumes, but because they all had to watch Goblin for the anthropology class on Korean popular culture, and some of the critical flashbacks take place on a set that was built to be a replica of the exact palace complex that we were looking at.
This picture puts a big grin on my face! The entire back row are people from our trip (the anthropology prof on the far left is in mufti because she did not want to wrap herself in three layers of polyester and stand in the hot sun, she'd done it enough times before thankyouverymuch).
The two people kneeling in front, on the other hand, are complete strangers and fellow tourists! They saw our tour director getting a photo of all of us, and asked if they could get their picture with us, because from their perspective, *we* were a tourist attraction! There were a lot of other visitors wearing hanbok, but mostly in ones and twos, so they were excited to get a photo with the whole line of us.
On the penultimate full day of the trip, we started with a K-Pop themed cafe, where I got to sit on a bench inspired by the Blackpink song "Ice Cream," from which I got the title for my 69th Guardian fic (I'm Sweet For You, Come Put Me in a Cone). I love Blackpink and I was very excited! (I'm wearing a Oneus t-shirt from a K-Pop band that I got to see in Fort Worth last year with my anthro professor friend.)
That afternoon, while I took a student who didn't feel well back to the hotel, the rest went to a site called K*Star Road, and even TODS got his picture taken with a giant tribute to Psy, best known for his much-remixed hit "Oppa Gangnam Style."
I took a lot of pictures of TODS teaching in his natural habitat--historical sites and museums--and made a collage that he liked very much. In the central picture he's sketching the golden rectangle and how it forms the basis of a golden spiral (in discussing the use of proportion in certain religious statues).
One of the first places we visited was Gamcheon Culture Village, which was very enjoyable. The place had an affinity with the Little Prince, claiming that he had visited there in his travels - since TODS and I translated a number of graphic novels about the Little Prince from French to English, the character holds a special place in our hearts, so we *had* to get our picture taken with various murals there! I thought this one came out especially well.
On the way up to the Seoul Tower, we passed a number of railings to which people had attached padlocks to represent their love for the K-Pop group BTS (a.k.a. "love locks"). I noticed that there were far more locks than room to attach them directly; a lot of people were attaching their locks to other fans' locks, so that the fans supported one another in their mutual love of the fandom. So the locks struck me as a symbol of one of the best and most beautiful things about any fandom. So I got my picture taken there.
We visited the royal palace one day and the students were very excited because they all wanted to rent and wear traditional clothing (hanbok), and somehow they coaxed TODS and me to join them. Since they're marketed to tourists, the rental stores carry large sizes, thank goodness. TODS looks very much himself (IMHO) as a Confucian scholar; they didn't have scholar clothes in my size, so in this picture, I am a female scholar (like "Kim Yoon Shik" in Sungkyunkwan Scandal) undercover as a princess. ;-) The students were pretty excited about visiting the palace, not only because they wanted to wear the costumes, but because they all had to watch Goblin for the anthropology class on Korean popular culture, and some of the critical flashbacks take place on a set that was built to be a replica of the exact palace complex that we were looking at.
This picture puts a big grin on my face! The entire back row are people from our trip (the anthropology prof on the far left is in mufti because she did not want to wrap herself in three layers of polyester and stand in the hot sun, she'd done it enough times before thankyouverymuch).
The two people kneeling in front, on the other hand, are complete strangers and fellow tourists! They saw our tour director getting a photo of all of us, and asked if they could get their picture with us, because from their perspective, *we* were a tourist attraction! There were a lot of other visitors wearing hanbok, but mostly in ones and twos, so they were excited to get a photo with the whole line of us.
On the penultimate full day of the trip, we started with a K-Pop themed cafe, where I got to sit on a bench inspired by the Blackpink song "Ice Cream," from which I got the title for my 69th Guardian fic (I'm Sweet For You, Come Put Me in a Cone). I love Blackpink and I was very excited! (I'm wearing a Oneus t-shirt from a K-Pop band that I got to see in Fort Worth last year with my anthro professor friend.)
That afternoon, while I took a student who didn't feel well back to the hotel, the rest went to a site called K*Star Road, and even TODS got his picture taken with a giant tribute to Psy, best known for his much-remixed hit "Oppa Gangnam Style."
I took a lot of pictures of TODS teaching in his natural habitat--historical sites and museums--and made a collage that he liked very much. In the central picture he's sketching the golden rectangle and how it forms the basis of a golden spiral (in discussing the use of proportion in certain religious statues).