Insadong

Due to our 2 days off of school (which we now have to make up with a 12-hour shift on Saturday...but that's another story for another time), we had a lot of free time on our hands. Monday was spent trekking through the snow (which spread up to about ...my knees) for a couple of hours. Tuesday, a buddy of mine and I went into Seoul for another photo shoot.

Now, I still don't claim to know what I'm doing with this camera. It's getting easier and I'm definitely more interested in what settings go with which lighting, the subject, the angles, the focus...there's SO MUCH to learn. But practice makes perfect, and Korea offers a lot of subjects. One such place, even in the frigid winter (at night it's -1 °F, about -18 °C...not much warmer during the day), sliding along snowy slippery streets and inadvertently dancing like James Brown and sounding like Sylvester Stallone, is Insadong. Insadong is full of souvenirs, but for the most part it's not the tacky polyester and plastic things that you can find in most parts. There are lots of art galleries, pottery shops, paper shops, hanbok stores, traditional teahouses, and antique stores. Sure, it's being infiltrated by the cheap Chinese knockoffs, but for the most part there is a really good atmosphere.

The perfect place to take pictures, right?

Besides my fingers feeling like they were being bruised anytime they brushed against ANYTHING, the fact that I couldn't feel the lower half of my body, or that when I started walking I usually accidentally got on the good foot like the hardest working man in show business...well...it was pretty great.

We ate at a very touristy Korean restaurant. There was some good lighting in there.

Kimchi pancake!

Traditional Korean dolls.

Snack seller.

Hanging stuff.

Candy sellers. (Men...would you be caught dead wearing those hats? Just curious.)

The already-narrow street was made more so by the snow piles.

A funny photo op. (James' idea...I stole it!)

Spices/mushrooms/nuts...all dried.

Lotus with a snow hat!

Motorized Egg man.

This man had just swiped some scrap metal. And was very...slowly...getting...away.

Yay!