Emmeline, this is the palace that the Korean kings lived in for centuries. They would sit in the throne room to talk with their subjects, or with messengers from other kings, or with the people that helped them govern, their advisors and counselors. Then, when they were done working for the day, they would go to another part of the palace where they had their dining room and have dinner, and then they would go to their bedrooms. There was also a Secret Garden that only the king and queen could go into, and sometimes after dinner they would walk in that garden and talk about their day, or maybe talk about the flowers and the birds in the garden.

There were lots of people that lived in the palace to wait on the king and queen. Here you can see the kitchen where they made food for them, and a hallway that the servants used.

Their windows didn’t have glass in them–they had wooden screens (a lot like the wooden grates in our floor–ask mommy to show you). On the wooden grates, they would put paper to keep out the wind and bugs, but still let in some light. Here’s one of those windows.

For EMM

Today I repented about my stubborn resistance to umbrella-carrying. It helped that there’s 100% chance of rain for most of the day. We’re heading back to Seoul to see more of the city, especially one of the city’s historic palaces.

For EMM

It’s not easy to consider the forms of letters without taking into consideration their meaning. When I saw Chinese characters, however, I didn’t have any choice. The only thing I could understand about the signs and ads in China was the emotional tone or mood created by the way the characters were presented. Take these two signs, for example:

The first, by its crisp lines, conservative coloring and clean presentation, is clearly intended to be taken seriously. It presents itself as professional and respectable; dependable but not stuffy, modern but not informal. This sort of typography would be appropriate for a bank or real estate office, perhaps, but would feel flat on a sports drink or coffee shop.

The typography in the second image is loose, playful, casual. The informal shapes of the characters, with their thick, bubbly lines, along with the coloring of the sign, implies a relaxed atmosphere, a business or service where fun is more important than precision. This sort of typography would be appropriate for a pet store or fast food restaurant, but not for an insurance agency or auto mechanic.

For EMM, Travel, Type Design, Typography

Emmeline, today we took a bus from Incheon (where Derek and Ashley live and teach) to Seoul, which is the largest city in this country. I think Minneapolis is the largest city that you would remember being in–I think Seoul is about 5 times bigger than Minneapolis.

We rode the bus through some countryside and some mountains, and through a lot of tunnels underneath he mountains. Then we got off the bus and took the subway. A subway is a train that goes underground, beneath a city instead of through it. To get to the subway we had to buy a ticket and walk down a lot of steps. You can almost see the subway train in this picture, Emmeline–the green stripe behind that window is on the side of the train.

After the four of us got off the subway (and walked up a lot of steps) we walked around in an area that has a lot of restaurants and shops and people. And today it had a lot of rain, too. There was an 80% chance of rain today, but I didn’t want to carry an umbrella, unlike the rest of the population of Seoul. It was a calculated risk–I got 80% wet.

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This is the view from Derek and Ashley’s window. The pool that you can see is in a large parking lot. It’s a temporary, above-ground pool that is set up during the summer, complete with inflatable slides. The coast is barely visible in the distance.

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