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Inexpensive Wedding Promotion at Hotels

By Kwon Mee-yoo Staff Reporter Bless your wedding day at local hotels with a luxurious mood and cost-efficient promotions. ``The best thing about hotel weddings is that the couple can have more time and space,'' said Kim Yun-a, wedding planner of Lotte Hotel Seoul. Unlike ordinary wedding halls where marital ceremonies are held every 30 minutes on weekends and the newlyweds and their guests rush out to make room for the next couple, the Lotte Hotel has a minimum of five hours between weddings. Kim also pointed out that hotels have accumulated know-how on serving high-quality meals and providing excellent service. The furniture and tableware of the hotel is luxurious as well. The hotel holds an average of five to six weddings a week. Still, weekend marriages are the most popular. Two increasingly popular trends are weekday weddings and intercultural marriages. Weekday weddings are held around 7 p.m. so the guests can come to the ceremony after work. According to the hotel, it also has some two intercultural weddings a month. Lotte also offers ``House Weddings'' at ha

Apr 30, 2009

Ceramics Biennale Offers Art, Films, Fun

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia Staff Reporter Ever wanted to learn more about ceramics, make your own ceramics or simply admire beautiful ceramic works of art? Head over to the on-going 5th World Ceramic Biennale 2009 which runs through May 24 in Icheon, Yeoju and Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province. Icheon is the largest ceramics center in Korea, while Yeoju and Gwangju are also considered major ceramics hubs. Every year, there are ceramics festivals in these three cities, but every two years, the festivals are combined with the World Ceramic Biennale. This international event highlights the beauty and history of ceramics, and attracts ceramics artists and enthusiasts from all over the world. The main events are the international competition and exhibitions featuring contemporary ceramics, but there are also interesting side-events such as art workshops, symposiums and the first-ever Clay Art Film Festival in Korea. Showcase of Ceramic Art The biennale showcases contemporary ceramics by artists from all over the world. Over 1,726 artists from 70 countries submitted 3,196

Apr 30, 2009

Spring Festivals in Jeolla Nam-do

By Brian Deutsch Contributing Writer Though South Jeolla Province (Jeollanam-do) has four distinct seasons, its finest are spring and fall. The festivals at these times of year not only get the locals excited, but get out-of-towners, Korean and foreign alike, to make weekend trips there. Some people complain that there are too many festivals, that each village, town and county will find any excuse to call outdoor trot music and makkoli a festival. There are dozens of festivals in the province alone, and yes, quite a few are nothing special. Fortunately, the province's best sites have merit in their own right, merit which is augmented by the festivals that run each spring. These must-visits do not overlap, meaning your weekends can plan themselves for the next few weeks. The Hampyeong Butterfly Festival starts April 24 and runs through May 10. Hampyeong has set itself up as a regional eco-tourism destination, and has chosen butterflies as the medium for it. The town, ordinarily home to fewer than 11,000 people, feels more like an amusement park these three w

Apr 23, 2009

Steamy Kalguksu at Seafood Kaljebi

By Han Sang-hee Staff Reporter When it is chilly, nothing is better than a warm dish of hearty noodles. With the rain and wind coming and going this spring, we paid a visit to a small noodle restaurant near Chungmuro, the homeland of Korean cinema, to brush off the chill. Opened in 1982, ``Seafood Kaljebi'' offers various noodle dishes, well known to the Korean public as ``kalguksu,'' or hand rolled noodles with a thick broth made with seafood, chicken or anchovies. The word ``kaljebi'' is a combined form of ``kalguksu'' and another local recipe, ``sujebi.'' Kalguksu is made of noodles that are hand rolled and cut with a sharp knife, ``kal'' in Korean. ``Guksu'' means noodles. Sujebi is known to have stemmed from kalguksu and is made with flakes instead of noodles. Instead of making noodles, the maker would tear off small pieces of the dough, which is made with wheat, flour or even potatoes and barley, and serve it with the same steamy hot soup. Thus, kaljebi has both noodles and flakes in one dish. The restaurant is small with about 10 tables, and the kitch

Apr 23, 2009

Go South!

Kaohsiung, Port City of Taiwan By Chung Ah-young Korea Times Correspondent KAOHSIUNG ― Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan with 1.5 million inhabitants, is known for its harbor located in the south of the island more for commercial than tourism reasons. But in recent years, the city called ``the Harbor Capital of Taiwan'' is striving to attract tourists from around the world, particularly Korea, with its year-round moderate weather and low cost of living. The city is transforming itself from a primarily industrial city into an Asian metropolis, keeping old vestiges alongside modern landscapes. Kaohsiung is often compared with Busan, the southern port city of Korea. In this port city, there are numerous exotic scenic tourist spots that are not to be missed. Former British Consulate Built in 1865 during the Qing Dynasty, the Former British Consulate is located on a small hilltop overlooking Hsizuhwan Bay. It was the first consulate and Western-style architecture constructed by the British in Taiwan. The beautiful terrace retains the core of th

Apr 23, 2009

Texan Cities Blend Western History With Modern Attractions

By Kwon Mee-yoo Korea Times Correspondent DALLAS/FORT WORTH, Texas ― Experience unique American culture with a cosmopolitan touch in Dallas and Fort Worth, two close but very different cities in Lone Star State. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is a jewel of travel destinations in the United States, full of cowboy culture, sophisticated art, exotic food and the Texan spirit, while blending Western history with modern attractions. Land of Cowboys Fort Worth was a major stop for the rest and supply of cowboys who led herds of longhorn cattle following the historic Chisholm Trail up to Kansas' railheads. The $3 cow of Texas jumped to $35 in Kansas, making the cowboys go on the long trips. Nowadays, Fort Worth Stockyards, a National Historic District, maintains the rich legacy of cowboy spirit. Meanwhile, the city of Fort Worth turned the old livestock market into a tourist destination to preserve the tradition of cowboys. The area looks almost as it did some 100 years ago. Along Exchange Avenue, a hotel built in the early 1900s, bars, Western salons with cou

Apr 23, 2009

Hotel Lobby

Westin Chosun Seoul The Westin Chosun Seoul invites children to the ``SpongeBob Adventure World'' for fantastic children's meals, games and giveaways. On May 5, all lower lobby restaurants and function rooms on the second floor of the Westin Chosun Seoul will transform into theme parks filled with children's favorite characters, such as SpongeBob. As for the meals, guests can visit Aria, Hong Yuan and Vecchia e Nuovo; all three restaurants will be turned into a SpongeBob restaurant and a combined buffet will be offered. The SpongeBob Adventure World is free for families with reservations at restaurants in the lower lobby. For more information, call (02) 317-0365.

Apr 23, 2009

Indulge in All That Chocolate

By Kwon Mee-yoo Staff Reporter ``All Cacao'' a six-course meal flavored with the finest chocolates for each dish goes beyond the conventional use of chocolate as a mere dessert ingredient. The Grand InterContinental Seoul's Executive Sous Chef Eric Pellen created the menu, tasting some two kilograms of chocolates by himself for six months. Pellen is a French chef with culinary experiences in various European countries, as well as Egypt. Using chocolate in different dishes is a new trend in France and the chef devised a chocolate-featured menu to share this new sensation with his guests at the hotel's French restaurant Table 34. The chef started to develop the special chocolate menu last November. He first read books on chocolate to learn more and then made various combinations of different chocolates, products and vegetables to learn the best combinations of ingredients. ``You have to be careful not to have one product overtaking the other,'' Pellen told The Korea Times Wednesday. ``It is very important to keep balance.'' The course employs seven different kin

Apr 23, 2009

KoreaToday Natural, Colorful, Playful Appealing Characters of Korean Food

By Kim Hyun-cheol Staff Reporter To most Korean people, characterizing the local cuisine might be a daunting job. It is often confusing and even embarrassing to pick aspects in Korean food culture that could be fascinating to those outside the country who are not familiar with "hansik." Andrea Sinigaglia, a professor and the executive manager of ALMA, an international Italian culinary school, clearly summarizes the answer in three phrases ― it's natural, it's colorful and it's ``good to play with.'' He visited Korea earlier this month to participate in an international symposium under the theme of the globalization of Korean cuisine, held April 7 and hosted by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Presidential Council for Future and Vision. At the academic event, Sinigaglia made a presentation on the successful case of Italian food promotion. Since being healthy is one prevailing issue in the food scene throughout the world, Korean cuisine, which well meets this condition by not containing too much oil and not being high in calories, accordin

Apr 22, 2009

KoreaToday Turn to Local, Regional Hidden Treasures

By Kim Hyun-cheol Staff Reporter It's a dilemma and an uncomfortable truth. When it comes to the character of Korean cuisine, exuberant optimists and lukewarm skeptics surprisingly ``don't know enough about it'' to make accurate judgments. Most of those who say kimchi is not accepted overseas don't even know how many kinds of it exist in Korea ― over 200. And a lot of those who say Korea lacks drinks such as wine to accompany its dishes have no idea what kind of traditional liquors and drinks the country has to offer. And that's where critical conscientiousness begins for Charles Cointreau, the Asia director and head of Le Cordon Bleu Korea, a Korean unit of the French-based, acclaimed cooking school, on the globalization of Korean cuisine. In other words, Korean food, or "hansik," doesn't have "a robust identity yet." ``For the last 10 to 15 years, the government and companies here tried to press with technology, automobile, and what is called `Korean wave.' All of those have been very contemporary,'' he said. ``But to the contrary, Korean food is quite traditional

Apr 22, 2009
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