#As I was in Paris for the national festivities I couldn't wait to see the fireworks from the Eiffel Tower !

[evaskjew]

As I went to Paris really last minute and totally unannounced (long live flat-hunting and sightseeing), I took the opportunity to visit two museums - the Louvre and Orsay - as they are free with the education pass and for under-26s. The Musée d'Orsay is a museum showing works from the 19th century, so I thought I'd share a few photos of works for HL fandom artists to use as inspirations/references 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sorry about the quality and framing of the photos, it was very busy in the museums 🥲

And sorry if these works are well known (I know the artists are but I didn't know these works at all)

1. James Tissot, Evening, 1878

2. Franx Xavier Wintheralter, Portrait of Madame Rimsky-Korsakov, 1864

3. Pierre Auguste Renoir, City Dance, 1883

4. Giovanni Boldini, Count Robert de Montesquiou, 1897

5. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Femme de profil, 1896

And from the Louvre museum (All right, it's not 19th century, but anyway):

6. Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano Tori, dit BRONZINO, Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Statuette, 1550?

7. Salon and period furniture in the Louvre

I don't know if this will help anyone, but you never know 😶

[neijayah]

Seoul, day 5 - back to school and they left us (again) ㅠㅠ

Thursday was regular school again. The announced Typhoon 'Kong-Rey' (태풍 '콩레이'), which I heard about first time around Tuesday or Wednesday, sent us rain showers. Regular ones, if I have to compare that to rain showers in Germany. Though, for the southern part of the country they had predicted more than 200 millimeters of rain. Busan had heavy storms at their costal lines. But nonetheless people wandering around in kind of flip-flops....with and without socks, though pavements were wet and with a lot of puddles, they actually walked through. Strange Koreans. The good thing though, you don't have to stay out in the open most of your time. When using the subway, you spend all your time in the underground anyway. Only for getting from the station to your school/working place will be wet. And this also on a minimal basis, as I already said, subway stations have several exits. And the one I'm using takes up about 10 Minutes to get from the entrance to the train itself. You don't even have to leave the station/underground as a lot of them have malls for shopping like clothes, food, accessories, mobile phones and what not. And you can also use them to stay dry. Sometimes you have to use them, to get over big street crossings the fastest.

Unfortunately, mine is set out with a tile floor. The wet weather and the water that is brought in with the shoes and umbrellas makes the entrances/exit areas quite slippery. So watch out.

So after having October 3rd off (National Foundation Day, something similar to the Germany holiday, even on the same date), school was calling again. First class was working online with a provided iPad. Pretty cool actually. I will remember that for my teacher. Maybe we can get excess to that tool, as well. Afterwards communicating lessons in a lounge like class room, than having a break for an hour. So I looked around if one of these small shops like CS, GS25, 7-Eleven have to offer face masks. My throat was still itchy and my Korean teacher from home told me to gurgling with mouthwash, or keep a face mask on, all the time, when you're out in the open. And I actually found some in the one next door. Though I hoped, the rain will wash that stuff away. I was going around with face masks on a daily basis at work already. Didn't need to feel like I was at work here in Korea.

Back to school, with a lesson on listening comprehension and a lecture about the alphabet. Totally not necessary for me, but nice to now the letters names. We also made a small riddle. We had a list of words (short and long) and someone had to name the consonants of each syllable and we had to search for that word. Kinda fun. After that, again at least 1 hour of waiting time, as we had an evening excursion. I took the time to wander around and find that Isaac toast shop, so I could find a way to easily get there. Unfortunately, I wasn't hungry. Otherwise, I would have brought on. They fill you up so bad, that you have to be careful.

The way things are organized here, impresses me really much and other countries could learn from that. Every excursion is announced on the EF app. So you know, where and when things will happen, what it costs and if the event is full or some places are still open. If there are still places open, you can join the event via this app. So they actually know, who will join the excursion/event. Pretty cool. Unfortunately, an event I would have liked to join was a concert on next Tuesday. A K-Pop concert somewhere south of Seoul "World Friends Music Festival". It's for free, you will just have to pay for the transit. And know I see, 3 places are open again. ㅠㅠ The last time I looked up, everything was full. So I didn't mind that the sister of my Korean teacher had to cancel the Wednesday meeting and postponed it to Tuesday. Well, just my luck that I won't be able to join that either. The line up will be iKon, ASTRO ❤️, Momoland and a few more. Really would've liked to see Astro live.

So back to the excursion. Our guide, the lady from the front desk, told us that she'd been out from home for over 12 hours already. Poor thing had to fight not to fall asleep on us while the ride. We talked a bit while the commute. She was also the one doing the Gangnam Street Tour with us on the first day. She told us, that she was still living at home, like most women in their 20s do, just because they cannot afford living on their own.

We went via metro, what else and left at City Hall. This way you just have to walk like 100 meters to reach Deoksugung Place (덕수궁 약사). It was a night tour, which is something you should for every historical building in the city. It looks so stunning and pictures come out even more beautiful, than in daylight. The entrance fee is 1000 Won, approx. $ 1 or less than € 1.

Some strange music was coming from somewhere, we didn't know yet. But the atmosphere at that small place was just awesome. You didn't know, where to take pictures first. You just wanted to take pictures of these buildings from all angles. And the best part was actually the contrast to the modern buildings behind that area.

Then we found something that seemed like a fountain, without water. The light, that shone on it changed the color and gave it a different atmosphere each time. Though we (2 girls and I) were there just like 5 minutes, our group was gone. And we couldn't find them anymore.

We searched the whole area, which isn't really big. But no one was there anymore. I tried to reach out for them via KakaoTalk, but hadn't received any answers. But the internet access in that area, even with Wifi egg, was pretty bad. We left the park and waited at the entrance of the palace and watched the performance going on over the street. A huge tower crane had like 20 people hanging on a rope. First we thought they were mannequins, but it turned out to be real people moving in a certain choreography. And suddenly, right behind them fireworks started. A nice surprise. Due to that, I couldn't hear our guide calling us, via KakaoTalk. But she picked us up a few minutes later. They all were obviously at that Street Art Festival for a while.

After that we continued our tour to get to Gwanghwamun (광화문) via the restorated Cheong Gye Cheon (청계천). The Cheong Gye Cheon used to be a small stream running stream until 1958.

Till 1976 they built a massive highway complex on it, until 2003 the former mayor decided to remove the highway and restore the stream.

You can actually walk for miles, but as it was pretty late already and some of us have a long ride to their guest families ahead, we decided to shorten it and leave the trail at the next possible exit.

She showed us, where to find what metro line, so we all went our ways. One other student joined me on the way home. The only disadvantage of taking line 2 is, that it takes like ages to get to Gangnam station. Line 3 would have been faster, but than you have to change lines, which includes taking a lot of steps.....meh. 😑

We both went into the 'Paris Baguette' store, it's something between store and fast food restaurant....don't ask me how to name it better. I got myself ice creme, as it has gotten so warm again throughout the evening. Though, Koreans are on the extreme sweet side on food and drinks, this was pretty good. Not too sweet and not too extreme in taste, like Germans probably like it. This local is really good, when you want something from your known food list. Especially, when like some students, you're here for half or a full year.

I went to bed like 2 o'clock, which wasn't so bad, as next days' classes would start half past 1 pm. So I could catch up on sleep.