Matin Kim to open first stores in China, Vietnam and Senegal

Matin Kim will open its first stores in China and Vietnam in October and enter Senegal in the second half of this year, brand incubator Hago Haus said Tuesday. The Senegal launch would make Matin Kim the first Korean fashion brand to set up shop in the West African country, according to Hago Haus, which has run the brand since 2021. Matin Kim is quickly expanding operations on the back of strong interest from overseas customers. The brand opened its first overseas store in Hong Kong in October 2

2026-08-18 12:03:00:00

Paradise City to host Sound Planet Festival

Seventy-three acts from Korea and Japan will perform at Sound Planet Festival at Paradise City in Incheon this fall. The festival runs Sept. 5-6 across the resort grounds, Paradise City said Monday. Rolling Hall, the Hongdae live music venue, staged the first edition at Paradise City last year to mark its 30th anniversary. This year's festival returns to the resort under the slogan "My Sound, My Planet," expanded across a wider range of indoor and outdoor spaces. The Korean lineup includes Young

2026-08-17 13:58:34:00

Piano-shaped pastries mark Big Bang's 20 years

Three bakery brands are running a Big Bang pop-up at Lotte World Mall in Songpa-gu, Seoul, selling limited-edition piano-themed confections for the group's 20th anniversary. The pop-up is part of a wider project Lotte Department Store is running with YG Entertainment through Sunday, which also includes nighttime lighting at nearby Seokchon Lake and a media art exhibition at Avenuel Jamsil. Big Bang debuted on Aug. 19, 2006. What A Bread, a premium bakery brand led by Kim Ho-gyeom, a former chef

2026-08-17 11:49:06:00

Festivals, sights across Korea

The Yeongdeok National Heritage Night Festival runs Aug. 21 to 23 at Yeonghae Market Street in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, recreating the town as it looked in 1926 under the subtitle "Yeonghae 1926, Walking Through That Night." The market street is one of only six village-level sites in the country designated as a nationally registered cultural heritage area. Its alleys host 40 programs grouped under eight night-themed categories, running from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. each day. Main performan

2026-08-14 09:00:00:00

Packages and promotions

Paradise City serves seasonal restorative dishes through Aug. 31 Paradise City in Incheon is offering restorative summer dishes made with seasonal ingredients through Aug. 31. The Japanese restaurant Raku serves a lunch set called Natsu Special for 98,000 won, featuring Wando abalone shabu-shabu, sea eel and freshwater eel temaki, and cold zaru udon with sea urchin and cuttlefish. Seasonal single dishes include grunt sashimi tataki and grilled wild eel. The buffet restaurant On the Plate offers

2026-08-14 09:00:00:00

Blue Elephant steps up overseas push with first US flagship

Korean eyewear brand Blue Elephant opens its first US store in Beverly Hills, California, on Thursday, marking the Korean label's entry into the American retail market. The 650-square-meter flagship, named Blue Elephant Beverly Hills, sits on North Beverly Drive in the Golden Triangle, the shopping district with a dense concentration of fashion and beauty labels and restaurants. The opening follows the brand's expansion into Japan. Blue Elephant said it plans to use the Beverly Hills store as a

2026-08-13 17:09:17:00

Louis Vuitton reimagines classic Porsche 911 with Singer

Louis Vuitton has unveiled two custom cars built with Singer, the California-based atelier known for reimagining classic Porsche 911s. It is the first co-branding project in the history of either house. The collaboration draws on Louis Vuitton's "Art of Travel" philosophy and began with a detachable Tambour dashboard clock made at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton in Switzerland, before expanding to the instrument panel, the cockpit and the vehicles themselves. The first car, the Porsche 911 Re

2026-08-13 17:09:09:00

Two bowls for malbok, one boiling hot and one ice-cold

The ttukbaegi earthenware pot came to the table still boiling, and the broth inside was so white it looked closer to porridge than soup. That was dinner on a recent weekday at 3dae Samgyejangin in Seocho-gu, Seoul, one of the restaurants where Seoulites will be queuing on Friday. Aug. 14 is malbok, the last of the three hottest days of summer that Koreans call boknal. The three days are determined by the traditional 60-day cycle rather than the lunar calendar. Chobok, the first, landed on July 1

2026-08-13 15:17:44:00

Welfare ministry logs nearly 700,000 heat-related home health checks in a month

The Ministry of Health and Welfare carried out a total of 696,566 heat-response health management cases through its home-visit health care program over about a month of severe heat, it said Tuesday. The figure covers the period from July 13 through Monday. Under the program, nurses visit homes and senior community centers to assess and counsel vulnerable groups and people aged 65 and older on their health. The program's budget rose about 8 percent from 45.735 billion won ($32.3 million) in 2022

2026-08-11 21:08:14:00

Mother and son die in western Seoul apartment fire

Two people died and another was injured in a fire at an apartment in western Seoul on Tuesday afternoon. The fire started around 4:55 p.m. in a unit on the 15th floor of an apartment building in Gayang-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul. The two who died were found in a flowerbed outside the building and were residents of the unit where the fire began. Authorities speculate the two jumped from the apartment to escape the fire. The victims were a 61-year-old woman with a brain lesion disability and a 38-yea

2026-08-11 20:13:14:00