LOS ANGELES –– Claudia Flores and her husband were months past due on $60 phone and $80 electricity bills.　So they packed their minivans with strollers, car seats, used T-shirts and assorted other things and drove to a stretch of Figueroa Street just blocks from Imperial Highway in South Los Angeles.　There, they spread their wares on the sidewalk and opened for business.　This part of Figueroa Street has become a shopping bazaar of last resort for people living on the margins.　Every weekend, doze

Artist Lee Myung-ho has sued London-based Greek fashion designer Mary Katrantzou for copying one of his iconic tree series, calling it “intentional plagiarism.” 　The artist claims the celebrated fashion designer, known for her use of bold prints on clothes and accessories, took part of Lee’s 2013 work for her T-shirts and handbag designs without his permission. 　“The designer took the image and altered it a little, such as expanding the width of the image, editing a few details. The pixels in th

The government announced plans Monday to transform Seoul’s Yongsan 2ga-dong, better known by the expatriate community as Haebangchon or HBC, into a “Green Culture Village,” where nature will blend with the region’s unique culture.A total of 38 billion won ($33 million) will be invested by the government to build a food street and a strolling path along Mount Namsan for culture and history tours that include a walk through a sweater factory that once was the economic motor of HBC between 1960 and

Seoul’s newest culture tourism facility, the K-Style Hub, is technology at its finest, offering the very best in information and education on Korea’s traditional culture as well as one-stop shop for hallyu. 　The hub, which hosted President Park Geun-hye and hallyu star Song Joong-ki at its opening ceremony last Monday, is one of the city’s most sophisticated and technologically advanced tourism centers. 　Located on the second through fifth floors in the former headquarters of the Korea Tourism O

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- The first foreign experts who visited the museum in Palmyra after it was taken over from Islamic State militants said they spent a week collecting fragments of priceless broken sculptures from the museum grounds and preparing them for transportation to Damascus in a rescue mission they hope will help salvage most of its contents. 　Back in the Syrian capital Saturday, they offered grim new details about the extent of the destruction caused by the extremists during their 10

Be ready to get your hands busy when eating Korean pork stew with potato, gamjatang.Gamjatang, is steaming, spicy red broth filled with generous amounts of savory bones of meat, meaning that you have to pick, extract the bits of meat on the bones and suck on the most tasty soup from tiny crevices: forks or chopsticks are too clumsy for the job. Interestingly, gamja means potato, and tang is soup, so gamjatang is supposed to mean a potato soup but it’s not. The soup has some chunks of potatoes in

Eating out in Korea goes far beyond local cuisine with kimchi.You will be surprised to see a wide diversity of dishes from Alabama-style barbecue to German schnitzel. First things first: favorite restaurants in Itaewon, the most exotic and global tourism site in Seoul. With its proximity to a huge U.S. army base Itaewon is known for its diverse food culture, which features cuisine from around world. May you enjoy your meal -- or as they say in Korea, “Masit-ge Deu-se-yo!”◇ VATOS URBAN TACOS181-8

The South Korean city of Gwangmyeong will host an exhibition of prehistoric cave drawings from France as one of many cultural exchanges to commemorate the 130th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, the city announced Friday.In a joint press conference held in Seoul, Gwangmyeong city Mayor Yang Ki-dae and former French Culture and Communications Minister Fleur Pellerin said the upcoming event will showcase the Paleolithic drawings from the Lascaux Cave in southwestern France.