The rain’s been relentless these past few weeks everywhere in the country. Worst I’ve seen since. Yet, as bad as it’s been in Seoul, the south has been hit exceptionally hard. Much of the country hasn’t seen rain this bad since the mid-1900’s.

(HT to Brian)

It remains to be seen how Korea plans to overcome its branding hurdles. Suffice it to say, I don’t think alot of people are all too upset that the current slogan, “Korea, Sparkling”, may soon be scrapped. Says Euh Yoon-dae, Presidential Council chairman on National Branding:

The vast majority of experts expressed consistently negative views about the slogan. They said it sounded like a brand name for carbonated or sparkling water, not a catchy tourism slogan.

No argument there. In my opinion, Korea needs to stick to one campaign and run with it rather than changing it all the time to keep it “fresh”. All this will end up doing is confusing visitors.

UPDATE: I posted this very same topic on The Marmot’s Hole the other day. It generated some decent and some not so decent remarks.

Jeju is a gorgeous island, but Udo is even nicer if you want to really beat the crowds. Min and I took the ferry over and drove around for the afternoon. There’s a great white sand beach and some really good restaurants. Udo was where I tried galchi jorim (갈치조림), a spicy horsetail soup. It was also where I snapped the shot below of a traditional woman diver called haenyo. Haenyo are women who earn their living as divers, swimming up to twenty meters beneath the surface to find valuables for sale, and they do so without any SCUBA gear or underwater breathing equipment.

Spent the weekend in Jeju. Didn’t want to come back. We got seriously lucky with the weather – not a drop rain for three straight days! Here are some shots from my set. I’ll be posting some others in a few days.

I recently wrote the copy for the annual Taekwondo event held at Gyeonghuigung Palace that includes performances by some of the world’s masters. I have not yet been, but will be checking it out this summer. I can’t think of a better way to experience this form of martial arts. The poster below should be up around Seoul very soon. For more information click here.

I recently gave an interview for a website called What’s Up Korea. You can read the full text here.

I’ve not yet posted this shot to either my blog or Flickr page, but it remains one of my favourites I’ve taken since coming to Korea. It’s from my set of Donghwasa Temple in Daegu. For info on how to get there, click here. The temple’s remote location is good indication of how Buddhist monks used to hide out to avoid persecution during the Joseon period.

From very early on in the creative stages we’ve received a tremendous amount of feedback (both good and bad) regarding Seoul’s new global promotion campaign. As the slogan is mine, I wanted to shed a little light on how I approached the project in the first place. Essentially, the idea stemmed from the traditional closing of a letter. Here’s the way I pitched it in March at City Hall:

Seoul is such an exciting and vibrant city with endless possibility and opportunity. Yet, it is also a very warm and welcoming city. We tried many ways about how to best explain what kind of place Seoul is and I knew we needed to make it more emotionally appealing. The word ‘infinite’, has considerable impact and makes one think of ‘endless’, ‘limitless’ offerings but it is not very emotional. That’s when I came up with ‘Infinitely yours’. The phrase stems from the traditional closing of a letter and expresses a feeling of genuine warmth. By bridging these two elements together, the slogan “Infinitely yours, Seoul” has emotional impact and also expresses a feeling of endless opportunity. When I read it, I think ‘Seoul is here for me,’ ‘Seoul has so many adventures waiting for me,’ or ‘Seoul has everything I need’. That is the image that I wanted to express here. Not only that Seoul is endless with possibility, but that it is such a warm and welcoming place.

Honestly, I think the campaign has enormous potential. However, I also strongly feel that the visual needs to be strong in order to fully support it. As the slogan states, the warm and welcoming embrace of its people coupled with the endless amount of opportunities needs to be made strikingly beautiful in the campaign if it wants to attract the widest attention possible.

Quick aside here. I watched an incredible movie over the weekend. “The Hurt Locker” is a riveting film. It keeps you on the edge of your seat while steering clear of political policy and partisanship. Watch it if you get a chance. It may very well paint a much clearer picture of what has been going on in Iraq all those years.