The 2008 Centre Georges Pompidou Exhibition "Heaven for Artists"

Being a Sunday afternoon midway through the running of the exhibition, of course it was like battling rush hour subway traffic trying to get a glimpse at any of the paintings.

Maybe best just to see them in Paris.

Turn and Widen: an exhibition

Today's field trip was to the Seoul Museum of Art. I knew we were going to an art gallery; I just didn't know which one. I was probably more excited than the kids when we pulled up in the big yellow bus.

This exhibition, Turn and Widen, is a modern display focussing on contemporary ways of portraying art through the media of unnatural light, communication methods, and the concept of time. It was disappointing not to have more time to take in the exhibits as (as always) we were on a schedule, largely dictated by the childrens' attention span. But still, it was a very cool exhibition. Unfortunately today is its last day in Seoul, as the free entry would definitely have inspired me to go again.

Jangheung Art Park

Last Friday the kids went on a field trip to the Jangheung Art Park. Since "it is a good natural way for children to learn English", I went too. Can't say the kids learnt much English that day, but listening to explanations about the art exhibits was certainly good for my Korean.

"A Place of Emotional Experience
"Jangheung Art Park provides a space where exhibits and interaction come together to provide an exceptional experience which all members of family can enjoy. Jangheung Art Park is where "art - nature - humanity" coexists. The Art Park hopes to provide people with the opportunity for families to come together and directly interact with culture. It provides the opportunities for new experiences to be encountered."

I'm not sure there was much in the way of 'emotional experience', but there was definitely fun, and it's always good to have a morning off teaching.

The APPT Seoul

This isn't actually a post about poker. But good friend Ed happened to qualify for the tournament so shipped himself over for the weekend. Luckily for me he went out in the first day, but that meant we had all weekend to spend together; clearly that's why he qualified in the first place, right? ;)

Actually, mutual university friend Sun-Ho is also in Korea taking up holiday visiting family. Being a poker fan he spent much of Thursday evening swooning over professional poker players (while I'm sitting there at the open bar going, "Greg who now?"), but also being a fan of the salsa dance, I took the boys out to Caliente on Friday night to check out Sun-Ho's new moves. Speaking of which, it's the 2008 Salsa Congress in Seoul next weekend, but no doubt there will be more on that nearer the time.

So there was Insadong and Changdeokgung and Seoul Tower and the War Museum, but more than anything else there was silliness and geekiness.

Which reminds me of the "Rolling Ball" exhibition. Some geeks got together to present their marble rollers. It was amazing. Not to mention the weekend stay in the Sheraton Walkerhill hotel. So I was late to work on Monday morning, but I did have a good breakfast...

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

...is a grammatically correct sentence.

Yesterday, "sparked by my mathematical background and free time on [that] national holiday", I wrote a really long blog post showing how for every number of words 'buffalo' strung together, the string would make a grammatically correct sentence. With too much time to think on the subway I'm not really satisfied that what I wrote was 100% accurate, so have decided to come back to it later. This might take a long time though, since at this point in time I never want to hear the word 'buffalo' (or at least type it) again. So!

TODAY (which is now yesterday, and considering it's gone midnight, two days ago) I went to the Latin American Art exhibition in the Deoksugung museum. Pretty weird stuff. Lots of dismembered limbs, definite space theme going on in gallery 3, and gallery 4 messed with my eyes/brain. I enjoyed it.

TODAY (or Saturday, or today, or yesterday, depending on *just* how pedantic we're being) I saw The Dark Knight. Loud and long was how my friend described it, which I don't think is an unfair evaluation, but the raving reviews of Heath Ledger as the Joker were completely justified. It doesn't need to be said, but the lack of his masterful performances from future cinema screens will be missed.

Pixar in Seoul

There's a Pixar exhibition going on at the Seoul Arts Center near the Nambu bus terminal.

Ian and I went to the DVD bang especially to catch up on the latest Ratatouille movie on Thursday morning before heading down to see what the makers had to say about it.

It was interesting to see all the original drawings/character studies/explanatory films that went into the making of the animation pictures. Definitely had an aura of "Look! It's not just all computers. There are people behind this!" going on.

The exhibition is running until September 7th, so if you're a Pixar fan (I hold Finding Nemo to be the best film of all time), then it's not a bad exhibition to get to.

Summer rain

After 7 months apart, Ian has finally made it to Korea in time for my summer holidays next week.

As the perfect introduction to the country, Seoul (considerately) decided to pour it down all day. It did alleviate the feared mugginess, however a trip up Seoul Tower for an overview of my new home will have to be postponed. Instead we headed for a meander around the National Museum of Korea. It still contained all the usual findings from the various eras in Korean history, but we managed to catch a 'summer concert' by some K-rock band under cover while it rained in the distance. It was fun.

We also went to the "The Glory of Persia" exhibition there, on until the end of August. Naturally I then proceeded to plan our next trip to (ex-)Persia. So much world to see! The exhibition was actually really good - easy to navigate, English translations, and a video with a load of Persian images.

I took Ian salsa dancing in the evening, but naturally having travelled 5000 miles in the last 24 hours, he's still a little jet-lagged. I hope the weather brightens up a little tomorrow!