Music bars take older crowd down memory roadThe familiar tune of Turbo’s 1999 hit “White Love” boomed out the doors of K-pop Music Club in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul. The song that should have seemed outdated for the streets of Gangnam in 2012 was fresh for being so unexpected.The music seemed to attract every passerby who had spent part of their teens in the 1990s. A group of women in their late 20s walking by squealed with joy and yelled “Turbo!” as they came close enough to hear the song.Th

AGAWA CANYON, Ontario, Canada ― There are no animals, no birds, not one moving creature, except for a man on a lake who raises his hand as we pass. It is overcast. Sky the color of cotton wool muffles the harsh rocky landscape; the snow and hills blend into a black-and-white panorama dotted with the drab loden of the pines. Snow falls in fits and starts. It is already more than 2 feet deep. Let spring come somewhere else; winter has settled here, as always.Last year, the Agawa Canyon Snow Train

Gabon’s rainforests could be the next big destination for ecotourismLIBREVILLE ― It’s an extraordinary scene. As our small, twin-propeller plane flies over the the western coast of Gabon, the scale of the vegetation is magnificent.The trees, which look like an endless array of giant broccolis, are stretched along the coastline as far as the eye can see. Welcome to Gabon’s rainforests. Located on the equator in west central Africa, Gabon is bordered to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the north

PartialsBy Dan WellsBalzer & Bray Blame Suzanne Collins if you will. But the dystopian trend in young adult fiction isn’t going away. If anything, it’s growing even stronger in the run-up to the movie based on her book “The Hunger Games” as publishers rush in with their Next Big Things.Readers who enjoy headstrong feminist leads making their way through post-apocalyptic incarnations of major U.S. cities set in the not-too-distant future will find plenty to like in “Partials,” the kickoff to a ne

The Wolf GiftBy Anne Rice(Knopf)When Glen Duncan’s fabulously sinister and moving “The Last Werewolf” came out in July, it set an almost unreachably high bar for the lycanthrope subgenre, in much the same way Anne Rice’s 1976 classic “Interview With the Vampire” did for fang lit.Now here comes Rice with her own take on the wolf-man legend, “The Wolf Gift,” a fast-paced, heady romp that ranks with her best. I still give “The Last Werewolf” the edge, by the teensiest smidgen, because of its operat

The Moon of the Mind Rises in Empty SpaceBy Prime Dharma Master Kyongsan(Seoul Selection) Many foreigners will find Won Buddhism unfamiliar compared to other forms of Korean Buddhism. It was in fact founded in the 20th century, and is claimed to be a “reformed and modernized Buddhism” which combines Buddhism with Confucianism and Daoism.By picking up this English-language book written by the Ven. Kyongsan, who is the fifth Prime Darma Master of Won Buddhism, one can learn about the key ideas of

In the world of legacies, Oak Park, Illinois, has a couple of biggies.The brilliant, scandalous architect Frank Lloyd Wright spent the first 20 years of his career there, leaving the western suburb with the world’s largest collection of buildings he designed.Then there’s the brilliant, scandalous writer Ernest Hemingway, who was born in Oak Park and spent nearly his first 20 years there, writing his earliest pieces, gaining an appreciation for nature and dreaming of worldly adventures.Frank Lloy

Eochae is a dish of parboiled white fish fillets and vegetables with starch coating that are color-coordinated and placed around a dish. It is served with a vinegar red pepper paste sauce. Because it is a chilled dish, milder white flesh fish, such as gray mullet or croaker, should be used.Ingredients● 300g croaker, salt, ground white pepper ● 50g cucumber, 20g red pepper, 15g brown oak mushrooms, 2g stone mushrooms ● 30g mung bean starch ● 60g egg ● 5g pine nuts ● 5cups water Vinegar red pepper

Time to belly up to the bar for a martini or a Manhattan. Go ahead and splurge ― make it with Grey Goose or Crown Royal.The economy may not have rebounded enough to justify a luxury car or exotic vacation, but the affordable luxury of a super-premium cocktail is back in vogue across the country. After a brief slowdown during the recession, when consumers cut back on drinking at bars and restaurants, the spirits industry is once again on the upswing.U.S. spirits volume in 2011 rose 2.7 percent fr

The Antinori family now counts 26 generations in the wine business in Tuscany, Italy. That’s quite a history. But in the Napa Valley, it’s much shorter. Though Marchese Piero Antinori bought an estate on Atlas Peak in the 1980s, the family produced its first wine, a Cabernet, only in 2001.The 2009 Antica Chardonnay is one of the finest Chardonnays I’ve tasted recently from California. I love its minerality and bright acidity, the light touch with oak. Each sip reveals something different ― citru

American-style cookies could be next ‘it’ dessertAmerican-style treats have been popping up with increasing frequency at dessert shops in Seoul. Pie, cupcakes, carrot cake and red velvet have all found shelf space in bakeries and pastry stores in recent years, which may leave many baffled as to why American-style cookies ― the kind that are big, moist, crisp-edged and come in classic flavors such as peanut butter, chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin ― have been slow to catch on.“I don’t think peop