Lifestyle

DAILY FORTUNE - JANUARY 28, 2022

Andaz Seoul Gangnam launches 'Love Yourself' package for MZ generation

Andaz Seoul Gangnam presents a “Love Yourself” package, in which guests can have a body profile photo session during their stay, in limited quantity from Jan. 24 to Apr. 30. / Courtesy of Andaz Seoul GangnamBy Lee Hae-rinAndaz Seoul Gangnam, the Hyatt brand's lifestyle hotel, located in Apgujeong, central Seoul, is presenting a “Love Yourself” package, in which guests can have a body profile photo shoot and a relaxing timeout. Shooting one's “body profile,” or having a professional photo session after months of intensive exercise and diet management, has been a major trend among the young people in their 20s to 30s, the so-called MZ generation ― Millennials and Generation Z ― here, as they wish to keep records of their young and healthy selves.In the package, the hotel offers a photo session with Balance Button, a photography studio specializing in body profile photography. In addition to the photo shoot, the package includes breakfast, vouchers to the hotel's restaurant, and use of the hotel swimming pool and gym during their stay.The “Love

JW Marriott Hotel Seoul presents Yut-Nori with Black Tiger package

JW Marriott Hotel Seoul presents a Yut-Nori with Black Tiger package from this Friday to Feb. 6 to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Courtesy of JW Marriott Hotel SeoulBy Lee Hae-rinIn celebration of the year of the black tiger, JW Marriott Hotel Seoul marks the beginning of the lunar year with the Yut-Nori with Black Tiger package, a promotion curated for families celebrating the nation's biggest holiday together.Yut-Nori is a traditional Korean family board game played during the Lunar New Year. The yut sticks are long wooden sticks split into halves that are used like dice. Players take turns to throw them into the air and can move tokens on the board depending on the number of sticks facing upwards. The goal of the game is to bring all the tokens back to the starting point.The package features four yut-shaped baguettes, a yut board, and tiger-face tokens handcrafted by the hotel's pastry team for a novel family game experience. The package also includes two glasses of Black Tiger Guinness, created by master mixologists at the hotel's seventh-floor MOBO Bar.Guests will be given a luck

Lunar New Year drawings warding off evil spirits adorn Gwanghwamun

A set of “munbaedo,” or traditional drawings to ward off evil spirits, is hung on Gwanghwamun, the main gate to Gyeongbokgung Palace in central Seoul, Wednesday. YonhapBy Park Han-solDuring the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom, a curious-looking set of drawings would be posted on the main gate of the royal palace every Lunar New Year's Day. They were “munbaedo” ― images of both real-life and fantasy animals, like tigers, dragons, magpies and “haetae” (a lion-like horned creature), as well as golden-armored generals ― placed at the entrance to ward off any evil spirits and bring good luck.In the beginning, such customs were practiced mainly among royalty and elite families, who would commission the “Dohwaseo,” or royal bureau of painting, to complete the official drawings. However, during the late Joseon era, it eventually became a prevalent practice among the common class as well.This traditional custom was reborn on Wednesday at the present-day Gwanghwamun, the main gate to Gyeongbokgung Palace in central Seoul, in celebration of the upcoming

DAILY FORTUNE - JANUARY 27, 2022

DAILY FORTUNE - JANUARY 26, 2022

More than 200,000 travelers expected to visit Jeju during Lunar New Year holiday

A member of the 2021 Jeju World Heritage Festival takes a photo on the walking trail called the “Breath of Fire Trail” during a press tour held to promote the festival on Jeju Island, July 9, 2021. More than 200,000 people are expected to travel to Jeju Island during the Lunar New Year holiday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-sukMore than 200,000 people are expected to travel to Jeju Island during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday despite growing concerns over the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, according to travel industry officials Tuesday.According to the Jeju Tourism Association, the number of visitors to the resort island during the extended holiday period, from Saturday to Feb. 2, is expected to reach 207,000, up 35.2 percent from a year ago.The number of scheduled Jeju-bound flights during the period reached 1,244, up 5.9 percent compared with the volume of flights during regular, non-holiday periods.The rate of room reservations at top tier hotels on the island stood at around 70 percent, and that of stand-alone vacation cabins that offer relatively con

DAILY FORTUNE - JANUARY 25, 2022

Air Busan opens Busan-Saipan route despite pandemic

gettyimagesbank Air Busan, a budget carrier unit of Asiana Airlines, said Monday it has opened a Busan-Saipan route following a travel bubble agreement.On Sunday, Air Busan began to offer one flight per week on the Saipan route to preemptively respond to pent-up travel demand amid rising vaccinations and eased virus curbs, the company said in a statement.A travel bubble refers to a quarantine-free travel partnership between two or more cities or countries with similar levels of COVID-19 cases.On top of five domestic routes, the company offers flights on two international routes from the southern port city of Busan to Qingdao and Saipan, sharply down from 25 international routes before the pandemic hit the airline industry. It has 25 A321 chartered planes, but half of them are parked due to the prolonged pandemic. (Yonhap)

Artist sees modern human life in extinct dodo

Kim Sun-woo's “Paradise” (2022) / Courtesy of Gana ArtBy Park Han-solRising artist Kim Sun-woo's scenes of mountains punctuated by thick forests and water roaring through deep ravines are, in a way, reminiscent of traditional Korean landscape paintings. But there's one alien element that remains prominent in his dreamlike vistas ― the dodo. His latest series of 21 paintings will be on display at the Gana Art Center's upcoming exhibition, “Paradise,” in central Seoul, from Jan. 27 to Feb. 27.Often referred to as “the artist of dodo,” Kim has, for years, featured the extinct flightless bird in his works as a visual substitute for modern humans.Once native to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean with no apparent predators, these animals gradually lost the ability to fly as an adaptation to escape.“As people of today settle for the reality they mistake as paradise and start plucking out their feathers of freedom one by one, they come to resemble the dodo,” he stated.But in Kim's paintings, the birds become more than just a somber rep