Today I was in Seoul and visited Tapgol Park, Insa-dong, and Jogyesa Temple.  I don’t have time to go through all the pictures tonight or write a longer post, but I wanted to leave you with few photos before going to bed.

Saturday night was Ben’s housewarming party in Suwon.  This is the “Ben” I went to Spavis with, not my brother’s friend.  What’s unusual about Ben’s apartment, is that he lives one floor of a Korean house.  I’m so used to going to people’s apartments, that I almost forgot what the inside of a Korean house looks like.

This is Hank.  Ben was watching him for a friend.  Hank’s a cute and docile dog that liked to watch Ras as he was cutting up the pot roast.

Ben lives on top of a hill, right next to where the Suwon cherry blossom festival was happening.  We didn’t check out the trees during the day, but went out at night instead.  It was sometime around 1:30 am, but there were quite a few people out strolling with us.

After the party, Ras and I spent the night at Jenay’s place in Suwon.  The next morning, she made us a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, fresh fruit, a fruit shake, and coffee.  We’ve decided to unexpectedly crash at Jenay’s more often.

You can see the rest of the photos here.

On Saturday morning, I dragged Raswan to Coex with me to attend the Seoul Photo and Imaging Show at Coex.  I had pre-registered us a month earlier, and didn’t have to pay the 5000 won entrance fee.  This ended up being a good move on my part because once we arrived around 10:50 am, the lines were already long.  There seemed to be a line with 40+ people, and an empty pre-registered line.  I had printed out our online confirmations, and within minutes of handing it to the front staff, we had received our name badges.

Of course, this wasn’t what my badge really said.  It had my name and university on it.  Upon entering the doors, you immediately saw booths for the big boys: Nikon and Canon.  Most of the big vendors gave out bags with their logos on them, stuffed with brochures and catalogs for their products.  Some of them also gave away those “things” that dangle off your cell phone - nothing to get truly excited about.  Still, people were lining up for these bags as if they had free filters, photographic paper, or at least something useful.  To me, it seemed like a game to see who could collect the most junk.

As an prosumer photographer, I found the event to be just “okay.”  Upon entering, you could see what a male dominated hobby this was.  Not only did these men have cameras, they had CAMERAS.  They were big, long, and I had to constantly dodge these lenses as they neared my head.  So, the men were taking pictures while ALL the models were females draping over one thing or another.  This is not the beginning of a feminist rant.  I just found it boring taking these model’s pictures.  They were paid to look pretty, stand relatively still, and look in everyone’s direction at some point.  It’s much more interesting to get a good picture of someone being natural, laughing, or doing something unexpected.  In the beginning, I found that I was pushing into these male crowds to take pictures of these models too.  After awhile, I realized I was only taking their picture because everyone else was clamoring to take their pictures.  This is how I felt after awhile: bored.

What I really wanted to do at the show was try out some lenses, because I’m hoping to make a purchase within the next month.  Of course I can go to Seoul and try out used lenses, but I was hoping to play around with some there.  Bart told me that unlike here, you can try out all kinds of new lenses in Japanese camera shops.

I didn’t take many pictures, but you can view the rest of these photos here.

Through the Flickr blog, I signed up for Photojojo’s Photo Time Capsule today.

“The Photo Time Capsule digs up your photos on Flickr from a year ago, choosing the ones that are most interesting (most views, comments, and faves), then sends them to you a quick email. I’ve been using it for a while, and it’s amazing how nostalgia-inducing getting a little time capsule every couple weeks has been.” — Amit Gupta, Photojojo

I immediately received an email and was pleasantly surprised by the photos.  It really jogs your memory as to what you were doing a year ago this week/month.  Last year during this time included Pocky sticks, Myeong-dong with Allison, chicken on a stick in Itaewon, and grilled chicken in Chuncheon.  Boy, I was busy!

Taken in Seoul, Spring 2007.  One forklift lifting another one.