Skunk

I am unreasonably awake in the middle of the night. There are windows open in several rooms of the house, including having a fan blowing in near the bed. After being awake for quite a while, the room started to have a clear odor of skunk spray. Who is bothering a skunk at 4 AM? In my case, instead of the idiom being close the barn door after the horse got out, I am closing the bedroom window after the skunk smell got in.
Not as classic a turn of phrase, but probably equally ineffective as an action.

Namjooning

Kim Namjoon 김남준 (stage name RM) is one of the members of BTS. He is well-known for liking nature walks, hanging out with friends, and visiting art exhibitions. Really, I'd think most people would like all of that. But since he is a famous person with multi-million followers on Instagram who see his selfies of doing those things, he gets to have the overall set of activities named after him. It's Namjooning. The person with the Namjooning tote bag in the icon above was in the long line at Festa
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/841533.html
She told me that she bought it on Etsy. Now I have one too.
So here, to finish up the trip blog a month after my last day in Seoul, are a few Namjooning bits.

Namjoon and another member looking down from Achasan mountain at part of Seoul (including the Lotte tower) on New Year's day 2018, at dawn. This is a screen shot from a video of parts of their hike.




Me at about the same place in June, at a hotter and brighter time



Flo and me at Gallery 35, with the artist. I am ashamed to say that we didn't write down her name, and I have no idea. The artistic medium is a traditional paper manipulation technique made into her original works. This was total serendipity - we were walking past on the way to Insa vegan restaurant and stopped in.



Namjoon with a probably museum quality moon jar. The modernly made ones that big go for tens of thousands of dollars. The ones that are a much older are much more. The MFA in Boston owns one.



The National Museum of Korea not only has an old moon jar, it also has a reproduction that one can touch. Or in my case, try to hug




When I went to see the embroidery exhibit at one of the branches of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (a museum KNJ has recommended online, although not specifically for the embroidery), I glanced in the gift shop and noticed that one could buy a small 21st century moon jar handcrafted by Kim Pan-Ki (no relation to Kim Namjoon, as far as I know. 21% of the people in South Korea have that family name, including three unrelated members of BTS).
https://www.kimpanki.com/Kim--Pan-Ki
After long conversations with the women working at the gift shop*, texts to my sister and Arthur, and some waffling, I bought one. They found it a nice wooden box and stuffed in bubble wrap, closing it with a ribbon and masking tape. For the journey back to Boston I put the box in my backpack, surrounded by nice soft dirty clothes. At Incheon Airport on the way home, I was pulled aside to wait for one of the cultural object inspectors to open the box. I had the receipt from the gift shop and the website above was open on my phone, but she had to take a look to make sure I wasn't blatantly smuggling out an antique. It made it home fine. I regularly walk by and stroke it.




I don't love them just because Namjoon loves them, but probably his influence didn't hurt. They also are almost a character in the drama "Flower Crew," or at least a plot point.


* I showed the photo of me hugging the touch-me display to one of the gift shop ladies. She said
"You look so happy."