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156. Bosingak Bell Ringing Ceremony from Nov. 21
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Author : U.E.C.
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Bosingak Bell Ringing Ceremony which has been abolished since 1895 has now resumed and will proceed every noon from Nov. 21 to Dec 24 for 30 days. Mt.Namsan Signal Firing Ceremony will be also held along with the Bosingak Bell Ringing Ceremony.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government¡¯s purpose of planning this ceremony was to establish the identity of Seoul¡¯s history and historical sites since the Bosingak Bell Ringing Ceremony hasn¡¯t been held in over 110 years.
This ceremony will be held every noon starting from Nov. 21 and will give foreign visitors an opportunity to experience a historical part of Seoul¡¯s 600 years as the capital of Korea.
- Click here for more information on the Bosingak Belfry
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Friday, 24 November 2006, at 10:00 am
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155. Korea¡¯s Winter Weather Forecast
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Author : U.E.C.
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¢º Temperature Forecast : Above average temperatures around -4 ~ 10¡É, the fluctuations in temperatures are expected to happen during the whole winter season.
¢º Rainfall Forecast : Average rainfalls (70~221§®), West costal areas and Gangwon mountainous regions are expected to have much snowfall on January 2007.
Mont Blanc Snow-scape at Phoenix Park
¢Á Monthly Forecast
November: Above average temperatures (2~14¡É). West costal areas and Gangwon mountainous regions are expected to have snowfall due to the geographical affect.
December: Above average temperatures (-5~9¡É). The temperatures during this month will drastically drop occasionally and west costal areas will have much snowfall due to the geographical affect.
January: Above average temperatures (-8~6¡É). The temperatures during this month will be fluctuating. Gangwon mountainous regions are expected to have much snowfall due to the geographical affect.
- For more information on the current weather conditions, click here!
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Wednesday, 15 November 2006, at 11:01 am
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154. A Exhibition of Joseon Dynasty¡¯s Royal Outfits
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Author : U.E.C.
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Korea Tourism Organization (CEO Kim, Jong-Min) is holding an exhibition displaying miniature figurines wearing royal outfits from the Joseon Dynasty period, at the Tourism Information Center (TIC) located on the underground level of KTO¡¯s Head Office building, from Nov. 21 (Tue) to Dec. 13 (Wed).
This miniature exhibition features various art work designs by Baehwa Women's College's graduating class of ¡¯96. A total of 150 miniature figurines will be on display wearing royal outfits which were originally taken from the pictures of Joseon Dynasty: Geunjeongjeon Jinhado and Mangyeongjeon Naejinchando.
 'Geunjeongjeon Jinhado' depicts a scene on New Year¡¯s Day in the royal audience chamber with the Crown Prince and cabinet members showing their respect to the King through a congratulatory ceremony. ¡®Mangyeongjeon Naejinchando¡¯ is a vivid picture of brilliant royal performances celebrating the 80th birthday of the Queen Mother. This folding screen is one of late Joseon Dynasty¡¯s prominent works of art.
This exhibition displays a large banner, and works of miniature character costumes from this folding screen along with explanations about each work. The exhibition offers an overall look into the customs of Joseon¡¯s Royal family, providing a great opportunity to promote our traditional culture to foreign visitors who stop by TIC as well as a great learning experience for Koreans.
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Tuesday, 14 November 2006, at 11:12 am
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153. Gangwon-do Ski Season Opens from Nov. 10
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Author : U.E.C.
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 This year¡¯s ski season was initially planned to commence on Nov. 17, but with the sudden drop in temperature and with the minimun 10cm snowfall, it has allowed the ski resorts to open earlier than epected starting on November 10.
Some of the most well-known ski resorts have decided to open this week. Bogwang Phoenix Park saw more than 10cm of snow on Monday, November 6, and due to the drastic temperature drop, has decided to begin its ski season this coming November 10. Phoenix Park is the first ski resort to begin its winter ski season. Phoenix Park is operating all of its snow machines located at the slope base and at Penquin Hawk slope to make enough snow necessary for good, powdery ski slopes.Yongpyong Resort is also planning to begin its ski season on November 10, and has begun full all day operations of 50 snow machines on 2 of its slopes starting November 7.
Hongcheon Daemyung Vivaldi Park announced that December 1 will be its season¡¯s opening, but due to the snowfall in Gangwon-do Province this past November 6 and 7, Vivaldi Park may also open it¡¯s ski season early if the temperatures continue to drop. Wonju Hansol Oak Valley is planning to begin its season on December 1, which is still under constuction on 240,000 pyeong of land in Wolsong-ni Wolsong Tour Complex. The construction cost is estimated to be about 2 trillion, 914 billion won.
Also, on December 8, Gangwon Land Ski Resort is planned to begin its winter ski season. Hyundai Sungwoo Resort in Hoengseong has yet to announce its season¡¯s opening.
The following chart lists the most popular ski resorts in Korea and its season commencement dates.
For more information on the Ski Resorts in Gangwon-do, click here!
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Friday, 10 November 2006, at 11:10 am
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152. Museums & Palaces Extending Hours Until Evening
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Author : U.E.C.
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 Good news for those annoyed with lights turned off in museums and palace grounds just when they finish work and have free time to enjoy these places.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism will extend the opening hours of state-run culture buildings starting from Wednesday (Nov. 8). This is to help students and workers who otherwise have no time to enjoy cultural experiences during weekdays.
The National Museum of Korea will stay open until 9 p.m. every Wednesday and Saturday. So far the museum opened till nine only once a month. During its evening hours, the museum is also planning talks with curators, family concerts and other events aims at helping people feel closer to the ancient artifacts of their ancestors.
The National Library of Korea will extend its opening time by an hour from 10 p.m. to 11p.m. The reference room will be open till 6 p.m. even on weekends for the convenience of working people. Through special reservation, one can view requested reference material.
Deoksugung Palace will also remain open until 9 p.m. to welcome families out for a break. The National Museum of Contemporary Art will also open till 9 p.m. on Friday to Sunday.
The Ministry plans to extend the late opening hour to 129 other public museums and libraries starting from 2007, after gauging response in the capital.
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Article courtesy of Korea.net
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Thursday, 9 November 2006, at 2:35 pm
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151. Gourmet Restaurants Series
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Author : U.E.C.
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 Myeongdong: A Favorite Street of Gourmet Restaurants
Myeongdong is located in central Seoul, the mecca of shopping, finance, and culture, and a must-visit tourist destination. Touring Myeongdong is even more enjoyable thanks to a number of gourmet restaurants that have served customers for several decades. We¡¯d like to recommend the following ¡°seven best¡± restaurants.
 Insadong: The Street Where Flavor Meets Art
Certainly, foreign visitors are attracted by Insadong¡¯s traditional ceramics, books, and souvenir shops, but they also come here to eat at the best Asian- and Western-style gourmet restaurants. We recommend the following for your dining pleasure.
 Sinchon, the Street of Food Festivals
The streets of Sinchon are always bustling with crowds of young people. Yonsei, Sogang, and Ewha universities are located here, creating a unique youth culture. Naturally, countless restaurants cater to the tastes of the younger generation. Various Western, fusion, and Korean traditional restaurants provide a number of pleasant choices. Following are typical gourmet restaurants in the area.
 Jongno, a Street of Traditional Restaurants
Just like the street itself, gourmet restaurants in Jongno boast a long history, and many of them have been run by the same families for many generations. The following is an introduction to the gourmet district, where the traditional and the modern coexist.
 Apgujeong: Where to Enjoy Elegant Korean Table d¡¯hôte
In Apgujeong, a mecca for the young and the young at heart, you can experience modern culture. With an abundance of ethnic eating houses and fast-food restaurants, the area also offers decent Korean restaurants with sophisticated décor as well as tasty table d¡¯hôte.
 Gangnam: Hip New Restaurants for Young Clientele
Gangnam is not just for the rich, young, and beautiful, but a place for everyone. This place is particularly trendy and a favorite among the young generation. Gangnam offers great entertainment and nightlife filled with diverse restaurants, lovely cafes, and swank bars, all worth exploring any day.
 Itaewon : Delightful Tastes from Around the World
Itaewon is like a foreign country within Korea, where various cultures coexist. People who visit the area are overjoyed with the chance to try traditional foods from various countries, which are usually prepared authentically by chefs of those countries.
 Sindangdong: the Street of Spicy Tteokbokki
Tteokbokki (rice-cakes in red-pepper sauce) is a typical Korean snack. The secret of its flavor lies in the harmony of chewy rice-cakes and spicy red pepper sauce. In Sindangdong, there are over 15 tteokbokki restaurants preparing it fresh, right on the spot.
 Samcheongdong: Gourmet Lover's Lane
¡°Samcheong¡± which means the three colors of blue, was given this name because the mountains, waters, and the people are really nice in this neighborhood. Meanwhile, this area has become appealing because of another reason; the taste, which can be pleasantly experienced at the restaurants in this neighborhood..
 Jangchungdong Jokbal Street
Located near Jangchung Gymnasium (Jung-gu, Seoul) are about ten restaurants whose specialty is jokbal (pig¡¯s trotters). In the past, the area teemed with customers, especially on game days at Jangchung Gymnasium. An area known for its traditional food, the restaurants here have done business for as many as fifty years.
 Bukchang-dong, Offering a Taste of the Past
Bukchang-dong is located behind the Plaza Hotel, nearby Namdaemun and large office buildings. The famous restaurant area of Bukchang-dong first began with a few restaurants selling meat, rice, and liquor. Most of them are small and shabby, but they have served their loyal clientele for many decades.
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Thursday, 9 November 2006, at 2:32 pm
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150. Museum Highlights the Work Behind Ancient Treasures
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Author : U.E.C.
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The Buyeo National Museum will open a special exhibition Tuesday (Oct. 24) on the craftsmanship of the Baekje Kingdom (18 B.C.-A.D. 660). The show will run through Dec.10. The museum, located in Buyeo, the capital of Baekje during the Sabi period (A.D. 538-660), will display a total of 380 artifacts, including unfinished artworks found in workshops, under the title of ¡°Artifacts and Workshops in Baekje.¡±
The Sabi period was when Baekje culture blossomed, alongside the development of Buddhism. Baekje was located in southwestern Korea and was one of the Three Kingdoms along with Goguryeo (37 B.C.-A.D. 668) and Silla (57 B.C.-A.D. 935).
The exhibition is designed to present not only the greatest artifacts, but also the procedures of craftsmanship to reveal the travails of Baekje artists. The workshops can be likened to factories now, according to the museum. ¡°Artifacts and Workshops in Baekje¡± will help visitors revisit Baekje's industrial sites, where cultural products of the highest status were created. To further our understanding of the lifestyle and culture of the kingdom, the exhibition includes uncompleted products and broken pieces of earthenware.
The display includes a metal craft workshop, an earthenware workshop and a roof tile workshop. The metal craft workshop displays golden and glass melting pots and tools necessary to produce metals unearthed in the region. In the earthenware workshop, the crockery artifacts and fragments found near the kilns show the manufacturing process. The roof tile workshop displays pieces featuring lotus flower-shaped roof tiles discovered in the kilns and various other types of roof tiles from the Sabi period, which will be displayed to the public for the first time.
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Tuesday, 24 October 2006, at 11:02 am
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149. Louvre Masterpieces to Be on Display in Seoul
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Author : U.E.C.
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 Some works from the Louvre Museum, the most-visited museum in the world, will be on display in Seoul. The National Museum of Korea will hold a special exhibition to show 70 paintings by 51 masters of the 16th through 19th centuries -- 400 years of the French artistic golden era.
The exhibition, which will be held from Oct. 24 to March 18, is to mark the 120th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and France. Also, the exhibition is designed to commemorate the first anniversary of the reopening of the museum.
The exhibition marks the first time works from the Louvre have visited Korea. The pieces were selected based on whether the artistry is renowned enough to have been cited in multiple textbooks. The exhibition was designed to show a trend in paintings that elaborate the relationship between nature and humans. The collection includes masterpieces like ¡°Diane Sortant Du Bain¡± by Francois Boucher, ¡°Medee Furieuse¡± by Eugene Delacroix, ¡°Le Radeau De La Meduse¡± by Theodore Gericault and ¡°Les Botteleurs De Foin¡± by Jean-Francois Millet. ¡°Diane Sortant Du Bain¡± is one of Boucher's masterpieces and is an abundant, elegant description of Diane, the virgin goddess of the hunt. "Medee Furieuse¡± by Delacroix is about a story in which a woman kills her children to seek revenge on her husband. It shows a femme fatale, a stock character, who deceptively misleads other characters.¡°Les Botteleurs De Foin¡± by Millet expresses the tough life of farmers and at the same time advocates the supremacy of human labor.
The collection also includes masterpieces cherished by the French. French royalty spared no affection and patronage to sponsor artists as creators, not mere craftsmen. Louis XIV was the biggest art devotee, and he filled his collections with vigorous and masculine paintings. The pieces are mostly landscapes and portraits to present the difference between Eastern painting and Western painting.
The exhibition has eight categories -- Scared Forest, the Golden Age, Scenery in the Classic Ideals, From Fantasy to the Sublime, Italy for the Painters, the Hunt and the War, Portraits and Landscape, and Nature for Nature itself.
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Monday, 23 October 2006, at 11:26 am
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148. Jogyesa to Hold a Temple Stay for Foreigners
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Author : U.E.C.
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In commemoration of the 7th Palman Daejanggyeong Festival, Jogyesa Temple plans to hold a free invitational event (a temple stay) for foreigners this coming Oct. 28 to 29 for 2 days at Hapcheon Haeinsa Temple where the Palman Daejanggyeong (the Great Collection of Buddhist Scriptures in Eighty Thousand Woodblocks) are preserved and is designated as a world heritage by UNESCO.
The participants can have a first hand experience of the daily routine of Buddhist monks through a temple stay if they desire to. Since there will be the Palman Daejanggyeong festival at this time, it¡¯s a great opportunity to enjoy both.
Any foreigners who are interested in this event can apply until Oct. 16th by email, fax or call.
- Email: ts2002@buddhism.or.kr
- Tel: 02-732-9927
- Fax: 02-732-9928
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Friday, 13 October 2006, at 10:53 am
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147. Leaner Busan Film Fest to Open Thursday
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Author : U.E.C.
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 The 11th Pusan International Film Festival will kick off its nine-day journey on Thursday amid heated enthusiasm that saw tickets for the opening film sold out in no more than two minutes and 45 seconds. A total of 245 works from 63 countries will be shown during the festival, 64 of them having their world premiere.
The opening film is the melodrama ¡°Traces of Love¡± by Kim Dae-seung, director of ¡°Bungee Jumping of Their Own.¡± The film, set against the backdrop of the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store in Seoul in 1995, is the first Korean movie to open the festival since Kim Ki-duk¡¯s ¡°The Coast Guard¡± four years ago. ¡°Crazy Stone,¡± a black comedy by Chinese director Ning Hao, will close the festival.
The festival has been somewhat scaled down from last year, its 10th anniversary, with 307 films from 73 nations, but the quality is as good. It is noticeably bringing leading Asian directors together, particularly from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia, highlighting one of the PIFF¡¯s aims. Hirokazu Koreeda from Japan brings his first samurai period drama ¡°Hana,¡± and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a Thai director who took the global art house scene by storm after his debut six years ago, introduces ¡°Syndromes and a Century.¡± From Iran, Bahman Ghobadi brings the road movie ¡°Half Moon,¡± from Indonesia comes Garin Nugroho¡¯s musical ¡°Opera Jawa,¡± and from Taiwan comes Ming-liang Tsai¡¯s ¡°I Don¡¯t Want to Sleep Alone,¡± which is set in Malaysia. Among interesting Korean movies is ¡°Bound by Chastity Rule,¡± directed by the late Shin Sang-ouk in 1962 and restored by the Koran Federation of Film Archives.
From Europe there are some films from leading directors. ¡°Belle Toujours¡± by Portugal¡¯s Manoel de Oliveira is a new take on Bunuel¡¯s classic ¡°Belle de jour.¡± ¡°The Caiman¡± by Italian director Nanni Moretti has a film director as its protagonist. ¡°The Road to Guantanamo¡± by Britain¡¯s Michael Winterbottom has already won the Silver Bear for the Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival this year.
In the ¡°Open Cinema¡± category, the outdoor showing of works which is the hallmark of the festival, seven popular movies by world-famous directors will be shown. They include animation ¡°Azur et Asmar¡± by Michael Ocelot, whose ¡°Prince and Princess¡± received a good response in Korea, ¡°The Wind that Shakes the Barley¡± by Ken Loach, which won the Palme d¡¯Or at this year¡¯s Cannes Film Festival, and ¡°Paris, je t¡¯aime,¡± an omnibus work by 20 directors from around the world including Gus Van Sant.
Other programs cater for different tastes. ¡°Contemporary French Auteurs¡± introduces 14 new French works to mark the 120 anniversary of ties between Korea and France. Animation lovers may want to keep their eyes on the ¡°Ani Asia¡± program, which will show six animations from Korea, Japan, Thailand and Singapore, while ¡°Midnight Passion¡± promises an unusual experience with 13 movies to be screened after midnight.
The main venue moves to Haeundae from Nampo-dong, the downtown area in Busan that has served as the center of the festival for the last decade because the PIFF has grown beyond its capacity. The fact that U.S. film magazine Variety decided to publish a newsletter for the festival from this year is additional evidence of its growing global reputation. Tickets are available at the PIFF¡¯s website (www.ticket.piff.org) and designated ticket offices -- all the branches of Busan Bank and Megabox COEX, Suwon, and Deagu.
- Copyrights ¨Ï 2006 The Chosun Ilbo& Digital Chosun Ilbo All rights reserved –
http://english.chosun.com
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Wednesday, 11 October 2006, at 11:23 am
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