MILAN (AFP) ― Femme fatales straight out of a Hitchcock film stalked down the Bottega Veneta catwalk at Milan Fashion Week on Saturday, but they could not compete with the seductive pureness at the Jil Sander show.Designer Tomas Maier’s collection for Bottega Veneta indulged in darkness, with tailored coats, jackets and dresses with narrow squared shoulders and skinny sleeves, sinched in at the waist with ruffles enhancing the hips.A grey stretch-dress, embellished with orange and red autumn lea

Enthusiasts enjoy social, mental benefits of old pastimeOn a cold afternoon inside an old building in southern Seoul, a group of people are playing cards. People of all ages cluster round square tables and chairs in a small room.At each table, four people sit silently, staring at their cards. “We play bridge here almost every day,” says Choi An-hee, chairwoman of Korea Contract Bridge League.Bridge is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 cards. It is played by four players with t

Low birthrate does not dent baby product industryOh Soo-hyun, a 31-year-old mother in Seoul, never stops looking at her smartphone while breastfeeding her two-month-old son. “There are many things to buy for a newborn, but I still don’t know what is the best for him. So I keep reading reviews of products recommended by moms on blogs and online cafes,” she said. From baby facial creams to detergents imported from Europe, North America and Japan, Oh said there are so many products that she has to

One activity that always seems to make it on the to-do list of people planning a trip to Korea is taking part in a Templestay.A Templestay at the historic Sudeoksa in South Chungcheong Province, however, is anything but average.A temple two hours southwest of Seoul amongst the serene Deoksung Mountains, this 6th century national treasure is nestled in natural surroundings far from the hustle of city life.The activities and rituals available to visitors are far different from the everyday experie

The Korea Tourism Organization published on Monday an English-language book introducing unique accommodations throughout South Korea. The book “Korea’s Most Unique Accommodations” offers 50 alternative hotels and other types of lodging, showing readers that there is more to Korea than stereotypical hotels. Divided into five themes ― Unique Designs Featuring Special Themes, When Comfort Meets Convenience, Discovering Korea’s Traditional Culture, Beautiful Places with Picturesque Views and Luxury

Visitors to the Grand Canyon National Park this year will find new water-bottle refilling stations, a South Rim bicycle rental and bike-tour operation is expected to open, a multiuse trail is expected to be finished, and more.Grand Canyon National Park, the 5-million or 6-million-year-old granddaddy of Arizona tourism, logged 4.3 million visitors last year.Rangers say that’s a dip of 3.7 percent from the year before, but the canyon remains among the nation’s most visited parks. And despite its a

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic RootsBy Deborah Feldman(Simon & Schuster) From the materials of a life resembling one of the darker Grimm’s fairy tales, young memoirist Deborah Feldman gives us “Unorthodox,” a true story of abandonment, twisted caretakers, arranged marriage and sexual misery. Denied every kind of nourishment except the doughy, shimmering plates of food obsessively produced by her Holocaust-survivor grandmother, this proud, stubborn girl, nonetheless, heard and

The DisenchantmentsBy Nina LaCour (Dutton)The summer after high school is a time when senioritis gives way to the anticipation of life’s next chapter. For most middle-class high school graduates, that next chapter means packing up and heading to college. In Nina LaCour’s young-adult novel “The Disenchantments,” it involves a weeklong tour of an all-girl band (which gives its name to the book’s title), during which two best friends reconcile their disparate aspirations and affections for each oth

This is Paradise! My North Korean ChildhoodBy Kang Hyok with Philippe GrangereauTranslated by Shaun WhitesideFrench journalist Philippe Grangereau first met North Korean refugee Kang Hyok back in 2003 in Prague. Kang, who was 17 at the time, had been invited by the People in Need Foundation to the fourth conference of the South Korean NGO “North Korean Human Rights.” The young boy was asked to share his life story in North Korea with two other refugees in their forties.The journalist recalls Kan

Even the biggest secrets have secrets lurking behind them.And, Thomas Mallon suggests in his absorbing new novel “Watergate,” America’s biggest and dirtiest revealed secret was no exception.The 30th anniversary of the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel is this June, and for many Americans, the cover-up and scandal that followed has become both a time marker and trivia.But the drama that led to the first and only resignation of a sitting U.S. president w