Seoul City plans to renovate building signposts in Gangnam-gu, the district’s office said Monday. The project aims to tear down old and worn signposts and replace them with new ones that befit the identity of each shop and street, the office said. Some 179 signposts are part of the project, in streets including the Ilwon 1-dong area and Gaepo-ro 22-gil, home to the country’s sole Gugak (Korean traditional music) schools. The renovations on the street will thus be highlighting the theme of cultur

Koreans around the country are mourning the fourth anniversary of the Sewol Ferry sinking, which claimed the lives of over 300 passengers, many of them high school students, on April 16, 2014. Officials enter the conference room at the Korea Coast Guard headquarters, located at the Central Government Complex in Sejong on Monday. Korean expats hold a memorial for victims of the ferry incident, which capsized four years ago, at a village near Munich, Germany on Sunday, local time. Funeral offician

A growing number of Koreans in their 20s and 30s are turning their small studio apartments into cozy nooks. More people are sharing photos of their home interiors on social media platforms, showcasing carefully decorated rooms. A search of the hashtag “ja-chi-bang,” a Korean word for small studio apartments where people live alone, on Instagram found over 180,000 posts. Photos of carefully decorated studio apartments are uploaded on Instagram. (Instagram)The photos depict snug, warmly lit spaces

Exports of cigarettes, which rank top on the list of export items tracked by South Korea’s Agriculture Ministry, plunged during the first quarter of this year. Cigarette exports totaled $210.6 million from January to March, marking a 28.3 percent drop from the same period last year, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on Sunday. The exports were hit hard by the United Arab Emirates’ imposition of a 100 percent special consumption ta

Working out at home, often referred to as “home training” in Korea, is rising as a trend among busy modern consumers. Without leaving the comforts of the home, people are able to carry out an extensive workout, proponents say. A wealth of home training videos available online allow those pressed for both money and time to stay fit with less hassle.Along with the fad, there has been a rise in sales of exercise equipment for those opting to break a sweat at home. In January, sales of yoga mats ros

After the brief cold spell Korea meets every year in spring, temperatures have turned mildly warm once more. Cherry blossoms were in full bloom on Wednesday afternoon, which saw highs of 18 degrees Celsius, at the Seokchon Lake Park in Songpa, southern Seoul. Nearby residents and passersby were seen strolling along the park amid the flowery trees, welcoming the return of spring. Written by Rumy Doo (doo@heraldcorp.com) Photos by Park Hyun-koo (phko@heraldcorp.com) 

Korean fashion and cosmetics company Nanda, which runs the popular clothing brand Style Nanda, has selected L’Oreal as the preferred bidder to buy a 70 percent stake in the company, reports said Tuesday.The deal with the French cosmetics giant is estimated to be worth 400 billion won ($375 million). Nanda’s founder Kim So-hee, 35, who holds a 100 percent stake in the firm, will have a 30 percent stake in the company after the sale, according to reports that cited Swiss global investment bank UBS

The season of outdoor picnics has dawned. If Western countries have the sandwich, Korea has gimbap as item of choice for dining alfresco in the park.A roll of gimbap -- rice, vegetables and other ingredients wrapped tightly in a seaweed laver sheet -- is considered both the classic picnic lunch and takeout food for Koreans.The typical gimbap consists of white rice, carrots, spinach, fried egg, ham, cucumber and yellow pickled radish. A timeless item on the lunch menu for Koreans, gimbap has also

About 16 percent of apartments bought and sold in Seoul during the first quarter of the year were expensive real estate.Out of the 24,606 Seoul apartments traded between January and March, 3,921 units were worth over 900 million won ($841,000), according to statistics released by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Monday. It posted a rapid on-year increase. During the same period last year, only 11.5 percent of apartments bought and sold were worth over 900 million won.  Mea

Plastic bags make up over one-third of Seoul’s recyclable waste, according to statistics released by the Seoul Metropolitan Government on Friday. Some 203,971 metric tons of recyclable waste, including paper, glass bottles, cans, plastic containers and plastic bags, were collected in 2015. Of this amount, over 59,189 metric tons were plastic bags, or 29 percent of all the waste.  (Pixabay)The neighborhoods that contributed the largest amounts of plastic bag waste were Seocho-gu, Seodaemun-gu and

Luxury handbag manufacturer Simone Corp. donated $5 million to begin constructing a larger, culturally authentic Korean language village in the US.The company will be supporting constructions for the expansion of the current Korean Language Village at Concordia Language Villages, the world-language and culture education program announced Tuesday.This gift represents the single largest donation in support of Korean language education in North America, Concordia Language Villages said in a stateme

One of the latest fads in Korea’s ever-evolving culture of “meokbang” (also spelled “mukbang” ) or eating videos, is “real sound,” where YouTubers capture their chewing noises. Lee Tae-goon and Lee Min-joo are brothers who run the YouTube channel Ddeonggaeddeong, devoted to the siblings and their friends eating and carefully chewing in front of a high-quality microphone. The soundbites of food being savored in the mouth are clearly delivered to the viewers’ earphones. According to chef Park Jun-

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom near the Yeouido area in Seoul, as of Wednesday. The cherry blossom festival of Yeouido, a popular event in early spring, begins Saturday and runs until April 12. There is a flower-filled road located around Yunjung-ro, near the National Assembly Station on Subway Line No. 9. People usually stroll along the road prior to the festival, amid the flourishing trees. Written by Rumy Doo (doo@heraldcorp.com)  Photos by Park Hyun-koo (phko@heraldcorp.com)

The South Korean government plans to provide public rental housing to youths and newlyweds at 70 to 85 percent of the market price.The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will preannounce a revised bill for legislation on rental housing, it said Wednesday. The revised bill seeks to offer discounts on first-time rent fees of public housing, setting rents at 95 percent of the market price for regular tenants and less than 85 percent for tenants who are youths and newlyweds. (Seoul Metro

A large percentage of Korean office workers replied they don’t trust their companies’ human resource teams in responding to sexual violence in the workplace, a poll result showed Monday.Some 6,017 office workers nationwide participated in the survey, conducted from March 21-25. Of the respondents, 76.6 percent replied that they “don’t trust” human resource teams to respond appropriately to workplace sexual violence. The survey was conducted by Blind, an app where office workers debate their comp