Browsing the archives for the shopping category
To be honest the Korean urban lifestyle doesn’t really do much for me. Sure, I sometimes miss the art and culture, the night clubs and the convenience. But after living in London, Berlin and Barcelona, there’s really not anything new that I get out of big cities in Korea. All it takes is a walk [...]
Somehow I always forget about the annual Gyeongju Shilla Ceramics Festival. It’s not that I hate Korean pottery or anything. (In fact, I’m a proud owner of several Korean tea sets). Rather, the fine folks over at Gyeongju’s City Hall always double book the Ceramics Festival along side other big events (which actually isn’t as [...]
Seems like it’s been ages since I’ve posted any book reviews here on the blog. But last month I scored a passel of books from Seoul Selection Online Bookshop for a bit of light reading over winter vacation. Not to get to promotional here (and no, I’m not getting paid for this), but if you’re [...]
Continued from Part 1… If you’re shopping for gifts or personal mementos in Korea, there are a lot of options. You could get something functional, like a hand-made tea pot or a brass ware dinner set. Or, if you’re searching for something ornamental, take a look at the calligraphy scrolls or hand-carved wood work. The [...]
Christmas time is just a few months away, which means (for a lot of folks in my country anyways) that it’s time to start shopping for presents. Korea offers some very unique and interesting gift options for folks back home and I’m not just talking about the kimchi chocolate or plastic fans that you can [...]
As we’ve been on the topic of tea lately, I figure it’s about time that I post on Ah Sa Ga Tea House (아사가찻집). Ah Sa Ga is in the middle of Gyeongju’s downtown shopping district, on Bonhwang-ro Culture Street (봉황로). It’s been open for almost a decade, though I only discovered it a little [...]
By Don Baumhart Continued from Part 1… Harvesting Tea Unlike the powdered tea used in the Japanese tea ceremonies, the Korean ceremonies use loose leaf green tea. Traditionally, this tea is referred to as “Jakseol-cha” (작설차) which literally means as “sparrow’s tongue tea,” as the small curled leaves resemble the tongues of sparrows. This “sparrow’s [...]
Not to become a broken record or anything, but most tourists just bounce down to Gyeongju for a long weekend, hit up the big tourist sites, and head home Sunday night. It’s a shame really. You can barely even scratch the surface of what Gyeonju has to offer in 2 days. To finally prove what [...]
It’s been a while since I’ve updated the links here on Gyeongjublog, so here’s a quick run down on sites I’ve run across lately that are worth checking out. To kick things off, it seems the KTO’s (Korean Tourism Organization) got a new interactive map of Korea that kicks Google Map’s butt. It looks prettier, has [...]
With the KTX slated to start running to Gyeongju by next Winter(fingers crossed), there’s been a lot of hustle and bustle around town lately If you’re local you may have noticed there’s been a lot of construction downtown over this last year. Seems the city decided to give a serious makeover to the pottery and [...]
