영국여행 | England (Day 10)

I can't wink, how do you people do it?

This day was a great moment of serendipitous fortune, because we happened to be available and in London at the same time as our good friends Erin and Morgan. They were some of the first people we met in Korea, and recently finished their contracts and went back to live in the US. But they were coming up towards the end of what I will call a "world trip" because they genuinely went to so many amazing countries and cities over the course of quite an impressive amount of time, immaculately planned (in my opinion, anyway). So it was really exciting to have a final glimpse of them before dipping back into "when will I see you again?" territory. Sobs.

We'd booked in to see another Shakespeare play at The Globe, this time Much Ado About Nothing. But prior to that, we had a mosey around the Southbank area, including lunch at Pieminister (repping the West Country), which I ate too quickly to even think about documenting. That's how much I love those pies.

We still had some time to spare, so we went to the Tate Modern, which was just as confusing and incomprehensible to me as it was during a secondary school trip, which was the last time I'd visited. Maybe it's all too deep for me. I got more enjoyment looking at people looking at the art. Or is that also part of the modern art? Deep.

We were in standing for this performance, so I got to see all of the gorgeous painting above the stage in better detail. I like that I got to have an experience of both seated and standing.

영국여행 | England (Day 7)

Deliberately moving this photo up to use as the thumbnail. Sorrynotsorry.

On day 7, Nick was busy with various arrangements and people I don't know, or at least know very well, so I met up with the second best thing, Ann-Marie (sorry, you're not a thing, I know)

We were determined to get some culture down our country bumpkin throats, so, after walking past the entrance gate and up the road the wrong way for about 5 minutes, we finally made it to the V&A Museum.

Considering it's full of ~beautiful things~ including fashion history, I've been wanting to come here for a LONG time. Look at that exterior! So pretty. Also, what a beautiful day to be spending indoors in darkened rooms with musty old things. Ah, yes.

Anyway, here are some pretty things. I like how they have benches all around this section so you can just sit and stare at the pretty things. I took these pictures mainly so I'd have some reference materials for drawing but we all know that's not going to happen, so I'll just share them with you.

My favourite dress, along with the section that made me laugh the most. Of course there's a section dedicated to modern British rainwear. Of course.

I love how tiny the lady is.

Shakespeare Lessons

I'm sad I didn't think to take more photos of these lessons. Over the course of about 2 months (7ish lessons) I read A Midsummer Night's Dream with my six 5th grade classes. It was an idea from my co-teacher, who'd heard of a competition being run by the British Council to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday (or death-day, depending on how you want to look at it.)

Every lesson, we'd review the previous part of the story from the lesson before (except for the first lesson, where we learnt all of the weird and wonderful names we'd see) and then read the next "chapter". Now obviously, I can't get a mixed level class of 10-11 year old Korean kids to just read the original Shakespearean English, so I made a sort of animated Powerpoint storybook for each Act (although to save time a lot of them were of merged).

I figured that, since Shakespeare's plays are all intended to be seen as performative art, it would probably make it a lot easier on my students if they had more visuals than text to get the meaning across.

What really helped me with this is my awesome co-teacher. Even though I'd simplified the script to within an inch of its life, to have it make any sense to most of the class it still ended up a little complex. So once I'd read out each page or sentence, she'd ask questions to check their understanding, or just directly translate if it was still too hard. We'd fill in any cultural gaps together and answer questions after each slide.

스튜디오 지브리 입체조형전 | Studio Ghibli Exhibition

Party Trick: Taking reallllly flattering photos of people.

We were told about the Studio Ghibli exhibition aaaages ago, and went "it's okay we'll get round to it later on. It'll be less busy that way." It was on for several months, so there was no rush (especially as we were hoping to get tickets for the Ghibli museum in Tokyo).

Flashforward to a few weeks ago and I suddenly remember its existence. We check the website, and lo it's the last ever weekend that it's running for. Of course.

As luck would have it, it coincided with a time we'd arranged to meet up with our friend Nicolette (another south coast buddy), so we all met at Yongsan iPark mall, where the exhibition was apparently hidden away.

Unfortunately, iPark is both enormous and really confusingly laid out. We got lost, quite frequently (as documented in the above photo), even though there were maps dotted around. Maybe it was just us, because nobody else seemed to be lost.

As you can expect from the title of this post, we did actually make it eventually, paid our money, and went in.

Google GIF magic

The first thing you see as you come in is a big animated model of Howl's Moving Castle, complete with clanking, groaning sound effects from the movie. It's so nice and really got us excited for the rest. The photos are pretty self-explanatory, and there are plenty of blogs online that probably did a better breakdown than I can, so I won't bother saying too much.

Calcifer! Eggs! Bacon!

Hourly Comics Day

Hourly Comics Day usually comes and goes without me doing much more than maybe entertaining the thought of drawing some hourlies. If I'm lucky I'll pick up a pencil and sketch out the first hour of my day, then forget to do any more until the events of the day have vanished into the ether that is my poor memory.

So the fact that I actually managed to finish an entire day's worth of comics really made me quite happy. I didn't do the full 24, though. I know I'm sleeping for a fair few of them, which doesn't exactly make for thrilling panel work, but I've seen people just carry on documenting the next few waking hours to make up a full 24. Maybe next time.

In an extra feat of showing-off-ness, this comic includes writing in 3 different languages and scripts.

Anyway, you can click on the photos to see the minuscule writing in something a bit less painful, if you so wish.

Without much further adieu, I present to you: A Day in the Life of (a Really Sleepy) Guest English Teacher in South Korea

경복궁 와 대림 | Gyeongbokgung & Daelim

So, in the timeline of events, (rather than my horribly non-chronological blog posts) a few weeks after Chuseok Nick and I went on another day out with Rachel and Jamie, this time to Gyeongbokgung and the Daelim museum.

But first: food. Of course! ;D

In honour of Nick, we had bossam (boiled belly pork, what's not to like?) but this time rather than ssam (large salad leaves that you use to make a fajita-style wrap) we had crepe-like pancakes, effectively a thin, plain version of the jeon that we love to eat. It was super good, I'd definitely eat it like that again, but then I'm not even TRYING to convince myself it's healthy via all the salad I eat when we use ssam. ;p

So. Stuffed full of pork, ssamjang and pancakes (and soju) we went to the Daelim Museum where there was an art exhibit called "Persistent Illusions" by TROIKA, a UK-based art collective that'd I'd heard of before but never experienced.

This ominous sculpture greeted us in the main lobby/gift shop.

The rippling mirrors reminded me of The Imprisoned from Skyward Sword and generally made me feel kind of uncomfortable and scared for some reason. But I like it when art causes physical and emotional reactions, good or bad.

For the uninformed: This is The Imprisoned. It's creepy.

Anyway, we headed upstairs to the main exhibits and it quickly became clear that this place was all about the kind of big hipster non-statements that I absolutely adore, so this was very exciting for me.

Deep, man.

트릭아이미술관 | Trick Eye & Ice Museum

Accurate representation.

Back in June, I posted about the Trick Eye Museum in Hongdae, which ended up as a fail because we forgot to bring any money with us (Ah, the dark days before we had bank cards)

So, what with it being rainy and miserable, we thought it could be a fun indoor activity for the day to try again!

What I didn't realise is that the Ice Museum and Trick Eye are both included under the same ticket, so the price actually isn't as high as I'd thought it was. Unless this was a special event for the holidays, which is also likely.

We thought we'd head to the Ice Museum first, considering we felt hot and stuffy despite the rain.

They're not kidding about the ice. Upon showing our ticket, we were handed a very trendy looking poncho/raincoat hybrid, and guided through something that looked rather uncomfortably like an industrial freezer door (which, thinking about it, it probably was) and were immediately hit by a blast of freezing, dry air. Like the freezer section of a supermarket, or a broken air conditioner. Goodness me.

Pretty much everything in here - besides the walls and floor - is made of ice. 

One of the first things I saw was an igloo. Most people were, sensibly, ignoring the fact you could go inside, but as if I'm going to pass up the chance to do that. The shocked face you see above is my sudden realisation that a frozen floor with a small summer dress is so not the one.

낙산 | Naksan Art Village

Continuing on from my previous post, we took a bit of a hike up to Naksan. I'm partial to a bit of street art, so this seemed ideal, mixed in with a bit of much-needed exercise.

The walk started off innocuously enough, with a lovely long mural next to an intriguing looking building in the ever pervasive trend of "industrial chic", egh. (Also, it was a lock museum. As in, a museum...about locks. Padlocks, door locks, safes...really?)

However, it wasn't long before we reached this:

Despite my laboured wheezing, I had enough time to appreciate the view, which just kept getting better. I have to say, the people that live here must be REALLY healthy. There's only one road up the whole hill as far as I can tell. Anywhere not directly on that road? Better walk, kid.