Ooops....it's 2015!

Hiyaaa!!
I can't believe that somehow it's not only 2015 but, it's actually February already and only now I'm getting around to an update! To say this past few months or so have flown by is an understatement.... AS IF I have just celebrated the 9 month mark here in Korea?!?! I really can't believe I've been here so long as to be honest the whole scenario still feels as new and exciting as it did the day I touched down at Incheon airport back in April!

This country still continues to inspire and amaze me on a daily basis, even on the less eventful days. The novelty of living in Seoul hasn't worn off and I find myself adoring the place more and more as time passes. 
I've tried to do, see or experience at least one new thing every single weekend but, despite being here for so many months I still feel that there is an outrageous amount of stuff I still didn't see or do!Which is kind of nice to imagine all of the exciting adventures and magical things I've still yet to encounter here!! Life in Korea is everything I'd imagined and hoped it would be and more!!!

So far I've managed to see quite a lot of Seoul and several of the nearby smaller cities around Gyeonggi-do and Gangwon-do despite having a lot of commitments here in Korea such as work, my Korean studies, midnight sewing, endless research and of course building a life in a totally new environment. It's been super important to me since day one to always make the most of living here and to never feel like I've wasted a second of this opportunity to live in such a magical city on the other side of the world. My time here so far has been glorious and has involved an abundance of cake, back street wanderings,  countryside jaunts, so many awesome exhibitions and galleries, deluxe food, roaming around forests, a bit of temple hopping and so many other joys! I've been lucky to meet a lot of incredibly talented and inspiring people as well as make some wonderful friends. I adore the art scene here especially the smaller scale, independent initiatives that are buzzing with creativity in even the smallest of neighborhoods!!

I love the old school charm of many of the more residential areas as there is so much lurking around every corner!
Seoul is such a fun place to live and is so different to anywhere else I've ever called home before.  I feel it would be virtually impossible to ever get bored of this city purely because there is so much to it and there is constantly something changing or going on.

So I realised that I've been mega slow with sharing photos of my adventures here in Korea over these past few months...the reason being that I take a ridiculous amount of pictures here and by the time I get around to wanting to post some, I've already taken a load more so there's a serious backlog situation!! (Yep, I've now got an action packed file of a whopping 9000 photos that I've taken since arriving in Asia last year....the temptation of snapping every little memory is too much to resist!!)
I'm going to leave you with a few photos from over my time so far here in Korea~!! 
Until next time!
Love and Rice Cakes,
Emma xxxx

Seoul Summer Special Stuff!!!

OOOoooOOO HIYA from TROPICALLLL Seoul!!!
YIKES....time has TOTALLY flown! I can't actually believe that I've been here in magical Korea for 2 months already! Seems only 5 minutes ago that I was seizing the final opportunity to stock up on Cadbury's at the airport and buying a last Boots Meal Deal! At the same time I feel as though things have been so action packed here that it's almost as though I've lived here for an eternity! Everything has continued to be super busy...when I'm not working, I'm taking advantage of every precious second that I have here in glorious Korea and trying to see and experience as much as I physically can! Korea amazes me every single day and I still have to pinch myself to believe that I am actually living here in GLORIOUS Seoul and surrounded by so much phantasmagorically awesome inspiration every day!

So I guess the settling in process is something that takes a while...I'm still grasping the finer details of things like operating my toaster oven in Korean...collecting points cards for supermarkets...buying potting compost instead of accidental bags of horse manure etc...!!!
My apartment is starting to feel like home...especially now that I have a windowsill full of plants (namely basil plants as I made the mistake of planting the whole packet of seeds at once instead of staggering the crops!)...and I also have some pets... 3 teeny, tiny baby fish who I have named; Britney, Liberace and Puffycakes...they have their own little tropical rainbow paradise complete with palm trees! 
In other news I will be starting my super hardcore Korean classes  in a couple of weeks so hopefully it wont be long until I can unleash a bit of lingo which will make life sooo much easier!

 
The past few weeks have been a total whirlwind...it's been awesome to catch  up and hang out with old friends and meet lots of new people and talented souls whilst taking in the abundance of amazing exhibitions and creative events that Seoul has going on as well as visiting a bunch of new places....I'm also doing a load of new research and getting involved in the skillzzzzzz of Korean embroidery and quilting! A lot has been happening recently...many a scenario...so I'll sum it up in a nutshell otherwise we could be here a while.......
found many awesome painted backstreets in Iwha-dong...ate about a zillion tteok (rice cakes!)...sampled many varieties of bingsu (shaved ice with an array of magical toppings, condensed milk, cocopops, fruit cocktail...)...picnicked around the many wonderful parks of Seoul....dodged snakes in Seoul forest....faced my fears and delved into a butterfly house... got sunburnt by the horrendously scorching rays THROUGH my denim dress...!!!
Experienced some beautiful Korean countryside... got over excited by the joys of the underground optical market and bought yet more glasses...went on some out of town adventures to Gangwondo, Chuncheon, Heyri and Suwon...took the trek out to Incheon to visit good old Art Platform....hung out in cat cafe's....drank Hello Kitty Sakura smoothies....tracked down some mega falafel...had my palm read at a weird private view/ studio bash bonanza...saw people in North Korea working in the fields from the Odusan Observatory in Paju, S.Korea...climbed a couple of 'mountains' and by that I mean cruising around Namsan and Naksan in inappropriate footwear...!
So all in all you get the idea....next time I will be more organized and update more often rather than this bombardment of info and snaps!!!!!!
Got a few fashion orientated updates which I will save for my next post...so for now I will leave you with a few photos from recent jaunts and adventures!!!!
Love and Sparkles,
Emma xxx

Heyri Art Village and Bye Byes!

Oooo hiya!!!
So a couple of weeks ago I waved farewell to magical Korea.... I was super sad to leave as I had such an awesome time there and working on this project has been both mega challenging and amazing... so although I didn't want it to come to an end, I'm glad that I left with a bunch of such special memories and got to experience so many incredible/scary/fun things!!!!

So in the whirlwind of installing the exhibition, wrapping up the projects, farewell parties, last minute shopping etc.... I never had a chance to share this weird and wonderful place that I visited during my final few days in Korea... 
I'd heard of this place before I'd even actually arrived in Korea and I had my heart set on going whilst I was over there and finally I found the chance to go, just in the nick of time, before I said 'Bye Bye' to kimchi land!!! This little gem is called 'Heyri Art Village' and lies on the cusp of the DMZ~  unusual location as you have this crazy little art village and cute cafes and then a few yards away you have armed border guards, views over North Korea and mile upon mile of barbed wire, so an interesting area to see~ but to be honest, after similar backdrops on the island for such a prolonged period, I was more into the Toy Museum, weird giant Daikon sculptures and strawberry cream cakes!!!

Heyri is about an hour north of Seoul so it was a fun little day trip and chance to see another part of Korea.... bit of countryside action in the mix and all that!!!! It's basically a compound of art studios and independent galleries dotted with parks, woodland sculptures, houses, bookstores, bakeries...It's home to over 400 artists and writers and acts as a place of inspiration in an isolated creative environment....the architecture is particularly exciting as each and every building is totally different and I loved how around every corner there was something really random...like a ramshackle, old red bus and a rogue mushroom house sitting atop a building?!?!? Really bizarre place....LOVED IT!!!

It was such a fun day...we spent hours trawling a few different museums and sampling several of the cafes....we seemed to be stopping for a snack every 5 minutes!!!! It was also in Heyri Art Village that I found the best 'Patbingsu' to date in Korea... Ok..so basically when it started getting warmer during my time in Korea my ever favourite 'Bungeoppang' red bean fish started becoming less frequent around the markets and ice sherbet aka Patpingsu/ 'Popping-Su' started taking it's place... I was quite excited about this as I always love an Asian shaved ice dessert and I guess this Korean version is kind of like a fancier variety of Japanese Kakigori... As those last few weeks were pretty warm and humid, I found many excuses to sneak in a patbingsu here and there and 9 times out of 10 the best combos were from the tiny back alley food joints as they threw ALLSORTS in there...anyway.... as I said...the best one I found was from a little kiosk in Heyri Art Village...it came with the standard: ice/condensed milk/red bean/mochi combo but was packed to the rafters with cocktail cherries, pistachio ice cream, fruit salad and CORNFLAKES!!!! eeeesh AMAZING!!!

Yeah, so all in all an interesting day out....the place is surrounded by greenery and mountains and then you have this strange mix between super kitschy and conceptual which is interesting.... super slick eco-structures sitting alongside a fibreglass Minnie Mouse and life~size Blues Brothers statues...weird and amazing.... one of my favourite little trips whilst I was in Korea!!!
So, then I guess that brought me to the end of an awesome 3 months living in Kimchi~Land!!! Yikes....now it's over it seems to have flown by but, it seemed like such a long stretch, especially when I was living it up rural style on the island.... it's probably been one of my favourite projects to date just because it was so varied in terms of the different aspects from the field research, making of the garments, the photography collaborations and the animation....not to forget teaching the textile workshops and working with the women from the school on the island! I guess it was also a special trip in that it gave me a chance to get a broad insight into Korean culture as a whole from spending time in the city in both Seoul and Incheon and then really getting back to basics in the isolated realms of Baengnyeong-do...Working on the island was tough in parts, mainly because of the gigantic, horrible spiders and of course because of what I was seeing on the news during that time, not to mention the fact I have zero experience of living somewhere so remote and cut off.... but, it was also awesome...had I not had the opportunity to do this residency I would have most likely, never ever, EVER in my lifetime had the chance to go to Baengnyeong-do so it was really amazing to get to see and totally experience such a place!
Yeah, Korea was super fun from start to finish and I got to meet some magical people...so I will miss it and hopefully will find myself back there sooner rather than later!
There are so many things that I am missing already.... sweet potato latte, awesome underground markets, constant K-Pop, cute cafes, glutinous rice donuts, street snacks, hanging around Hongdae and drinking bubble tea daily....too many things...but luckily I brought back a hefty supply of green tea with brown rice, endless sachets of matcha latte, my super special Bungeoppang pan, whopper stash of Korean facemasks and plenty of treats ranging from weird items of clothing to cute, new bento boxes and an outrageous amount of accessories and hairclips...so that should see me through!
Don't forget if you happen to be in Seoul or Incheon, there's still  chance to catch my exhibition, 'Tales from Blue Truck Island' at Incheon Art Platform until the 30th of June!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Laterzzz!
Emma xxx