I have been following Riceboy’s work for over a year now, and it just keeps getting better. His tones are flawless. Go check out his set. I posted a sample below. Good stuff.

For those of you wanting to shuffle and shop, follow at your own risk to my umpteenth shopping piece. Great shopping indeed.

Tore away to Gapyeong for the weekend to shoot the Jarasum Jazz Festival. I’ll post the link to my article when it goes up. Drinking red wine stretched out under the stars listening to live music defininately made it hard coming home last night.

Those of you wanting to delve a little deeper into the roots of Korean traditional music may be happy to know that The Korea House will running a series of musical performances by some of the country’s most revered artists from August to December this year.

The venue itself is the quintessential Korean establishment, with several beautiful hanok buildings tucked away amidst lush surroundings that keep the noise and traffic very much outside.

Directions are very easy, just grab Line 3 and hop out Exit 3 at Chungmuro Station. The Korea House is a short walk away from there.

My piece on Yeoju’s Mok-A Museum is up online (Page 39). There’s also a review I scribbled on Santorini’s, a great Greek hideaway in Itaewon boasting a fine selection of Mediterranean snacks (Page 54).

David Watermeyer also penned a nice little write-up on that beautiful Buddhist museum for The Korea Times. As Yeoju really isn’t that far outside of Seoul, it’s definitely worth the trek down.

Some truly beautiful work here on this Korean photo blog I found this morning from photographer 이상엽. I absolutely love this pavilion snap with the hanging mist. Poke through a few more in the slideshow in the top right corner. Another one of my favourites from the set is this one from Haeundae in Busan, taken by 김영수. Awesome stuff. It’d be criminal not to mention this one as being another one of the greats from the list. 안성진 captured that beautifully.

Found some incredible photos of North Korea that are definitely worth a glance. As clandestine as that northern neighbour remains, these snaps are a great window into a country frozen in time. Also worth checking out is Eric Lafforgue’s North Korea set. A fellow Flickr contact, I often drop by his photostream.

A few people have asked me where the banner photo to my blog was taken. I thought I’d post the original and shed a little insight. I took this during the fall last year on my first trip south with The Korea Tourism Organization. We trekked all the way down to Boseong, then wound our way up through Suncheon before finally taking in Jeonju. It was part of a promo campaign they had put together to introduce visitors to the hidden traditions not normally found on larger group tours. Anyhow, on this particular evening, I fell back a few steps and snapped this at the entrance to Naganeupseong Fok Village as the crew was getting ready to board the bus and leave.

Incidentally, the Namdo Food Festival is held every year in October.

I thought I’d go back and post two more from the first set I ever posted on this blog back in March of this year. The ones below are from Bongeunsa Temple - still one of my favourites.

I have been meaning to move more into the realm of portrait photography, and it’s sites like this one from Dutch photographer Joost van Buul that inspire me to do so. Some nice stuff.

Still not convinced? Perhaps his shot that made it in to Photo.net’s Photo of The Week series may do the trick.

There’s a great video series on the works of Henri Cartier Bresson. Worth a look for those who admire his gifted eye.

My friend Tracey was in Laos not too long ago and her photo set is incredible. Her writing ain’t all that bad either. Bookmark her blog and give it a read if you can - she’s been trekking all over South East Asia and documenting every step of the way. Good stuff.

Leica’s latest addition to its fleet of lenses, the world’s fastest 50mm, comes after their previous killer offering. A nice little addition even if it’s only £6290! Canon tried their hands with their ‘Dream Lens’, but that was before modern aspherical technology.

Spent the afternoon yesterday just outside the sleepy city of Yeoju at the Mok-A Museum. Despite the trek out, the very tranquil grounds of this private museum were enough to put me right at ease. Anyone wishing to unravel a little more of the mysteries surrounding Buddhism should venture out. It was founded in 1990 by revered wood sculptor, Park Chan-Soo, in order to preserve traditional woodcraft and Buddhist art. You can view a few more here. Read the rest in next month’s issue of Seoul Selection.

If you have time, there’s some insightful literature on causation and dependent-orientation that’s worth perusing for those wanting to dig a little deeper.