Monthly Photo Recap: September 2013

I'm not really sure where the month of September went... In fact, I'm completely bewildered by the fact that we're already a week into October? September was full of the beginnings of fall, a Chuseok vacation to the beautiful island of Ulleungdo, and the start of my mom's visit to Korea! I was kept pretty busy, as can be seen by all the blog entries and emails that are piling up...

Surprisingly, I didn't take many pictures last month. Well, on Ulleungdo I took a cool 200, but I don't want to post too many of those here... they deserve their own blog! So, this month's photo recap will be a little shorter than the past two. October's, however, is already off to a bangin' start.

Enjoy!

So, I went to a K-pop concert... It was interesting. I came out of it caring no more or no less about K-pop than I did going in, which is fine. It just isn't my "thing," but I still had a really good time. Blog entries about the whole experience are going up soon -- we got in for free for participating in a K-pop flash mob! Pretty cool. Stay tuned for the full story. 

EXO, at the concert, Incheon Korean Music Wave 2013. 

We had -incredible- seats, by the way. :)

Scorsese is such a weirdo. Cats are aliens.

But why?

I got to check out a HUGE exhibit of original Studio Ghibli sketches -- it was pretty amazing. 

And across from the Ghibli exhibit was a wonderful Mucha show -- seriously awe-inspiring. As a massive Mucha fan, it was nearly a religious experience for me. 

Starting off my Chuseok vacation the right way: watching the sunrise on a beach on Korea's east coast.

Ulleungdo! Billions of photo-heavy blog entries coming soon about this magical place. 

I would happily trek along Ulleungdo's coast every. single. day. 

Me and my mom! In Korea! 

Mom brought Reese's to help build our depleted stockpile back up. Sorry, not sharing. 

It isn't quite cold enough for "real" sweaters yet, but they're already on the racks in the subway shopping centers! And for W10,000 each?! (That's less than $10 USD, y'all.) Can't wait to wear these this winter. I think I have a sweater buying problem. (Also, I need to clean my mirror... -_- )

I envy all the napping he gets to do.

Ended the month with the last day of the Gauguin exhibit in Seoul, which was really great. Way too crowded, but that's what we get for going on the last day... Still worth it. 

Studio Ghibli & Mucha at Seoul Arts Center

As a kid, I was fortunate to live in a city with impressive art museums, theater, and ballet. Coming to Korea, I remember hoping I would be able to continue to see great art exhibits and ballet performances. Luckily, living near Seoul has kept these diversions available to me, which has been, for lack of more descriptive word, awesome. A few weekends ago, some friends and I decided to head to Seoul Arts Center to check out two art exhibits currently on display: Studio Ghibli and Alphonse Mucha.


Both of these exhibits boasted impressive artwork, and being a fan of Studio Ghibli's films as well as being borderline obsessed with Mucha's Art Nouveau lithographs, I'd been deadset on seeing these exhibits for months. With the end of September rapidly approaching and my weekends filling up, catching these exhibits before they ended on the 22nd was a priority. 



First, we wandered over to the Studio Ghibli exhibit. It's common for big exhibits like this to only let in a certain number of people at a time. So, after being handed our tickets, we were also given numbers. When we got to the entrance of the exhibit, we saw that we were about 200 back in line, but that they were letting people in 50 at a time. Luckily, we only had to wait about 30 minutes before being let inside. While we waited, we wandered around Seoul Arts Center, eating some crepes and sausages and enjoying the people watching. 


The exhibit itself was massive -- illustrated layout after layout showing scenes from every Studio Ghibli production imaginable. In total, there were nearly 1,300 selections from the animation layouts of their films. Another bonus: this is the first time these pieces had been exhibited outside of Japan. 



The skill and detail in the sketches was really remarkable. All so carefully laid out and planned, with amazing coloring and shading. It was really neat to see how Ghibli's richly colorful films started. Some of the layouts were even drawn by Ghibli's famous founders: Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. I've found that as wonderful as these exhibits are, the masses of people are actually maddening. For me, museums are a quiet, zen experience. So anytime I'm in a museum that's packed full, I find myself getting frustrated. In Korea, it seems everyone is content to form a line and slowly trudge their way through the entire exhibit... Let me emphasize the slowly part. Towards the end of the exhibit, I found myself picking up the pace significantly. Adding to the slow pace of the crowd was the fact that this exhibit simply had too much packed in. Normally, this isn't a bad thing, obviously, but the slow pace of the crowd's circulation through the galleries made me feel like trying to see every piece was actually impossible. 


I found the final room to be especially cool. Its originally empty walls had been plastered with round, white stickers, all of which had been drawn on by fans. Little versions of the famous Ghibli characters completely covered the walls and it was a lot of fun to walk around and just look at what people have drawn. I even added my own. 



Upon exiting the Ghibli exhibit, I booked it to the other side of the Hangaram Museum of Art so I could make it to the Alphonse Mucha exhibit before it closed at 8pm. 



The Mucha exhibit, while much smaller, felt like it deserved much more than the hour that I had left. Upon entering the exhibit, I noticed a completely different mood. Gone was the frenzied pace of the huge crowd in the Ghibli exhibit... Instead, Mucha's exhibit felt peaceful, which is exactly what I like when I'm looking at art I've admired for years. The nearly empty gallery rooms left my friend and I to stroll through at our leisure -- a huge difference from the masses in the Ghibli exhibit.


The exhibit featured some of his most famous lithographs as well as some sketches, oil paintings, and photographs. In all, the show had around 200 pieces, highlighting six different periods in his career. His works were displayed in beautifully ornate frames that complemented their Art Nouveau style. While walking through, I was talking about a mile a minute to the friend that was with me, just gushing about his art and the various things I loved in each piece. 

Seeing Mucha's work in person was awe-inspiring for me -- the colors and precision in his portraits as well as the wonderfully romantic style from the Art Nouveau movement in Belle Epoque Paris... It just wows me. The exhibit showcased the progression of his career and style really well, making it my favorite of the two. 

Seoul Arts Center, by the way, is really amazing. This was the second time I'd been -- the first being last Christmas when my boyfriend and I went to see Korea National Ballet's "The Nutcracker," which was just beautiful and wonderful. A big jazz festival was going on when we were there to see these exhibits, and it seems like they have events and exhibits there pretty regularly. I seem to constantly forget that Seoul Arts Center even exists, and this trip served as a serious reminder.