Chilbo (Korean Enameling)

 Hannah had a seldom day off from work so she came down late last night for a sleepover.  She's been working every day with only Sunday's off and she needed a break.  At our apartment, she has her own room and can sleep as long as she wants.  She got up in time for lunch before my chilbo class.

We found a restaurant close to chilbo and decided on galbi.  Now Koreans never eat galbi for lunch but that didn't stop us although we did get a few looks.

 She asked the owner to precook the galbi so I wouldn't be late for class.  Ordering took a little longer than usual even by Korean standards and I did hear Hannah say "migook" so I know something American was going on.  After the waitress left, Hannah said that the waitress wanted us to buy Korean beef which is twice the price of American beef.  Hannah insisted we wanted "migook" (American) beef.  She says Korean beef is too much money.

It struck me as funny because the last time we lived in South Korea (2007-2009), you couldn't buy American beef and there were wicked protesting going on about the government's decision to import American beef.  Times do change.

 The kimchi came in long strips so Hannah asked for a scissor to cut it into managable pieces.  Yummy!

;    Here's a view of our lunch.  I had 10 minutes before my class and I don't like to be late but Hannah insisted we get coffee because she ate a lot of garlic.  We stopped at this cute coffee shop on our way to chilbo.

I went to chilbo to find Nan with my metal guy.  He had texted me to come at 12:30 am for lunch.  I'm having problems with my phone and it's going dead a lot so I left it at home.  So he ate lunch by himself.  I felt to bad but this last minute plans happens a lot to me here in Korea and it drives me nuts. 

We agreed to meet next week at Nan's for lunch and he is going to take me to his workshop.  I'm so excited because I've always wanted to see him in action and to see his workshop.  He lives not to far from the miniature shop where I take lessons.

Nan had my jewelry boxes.  The first step was to unpack them, dust them off and put on the hardware.

Next I had to fire all 24 copper plates to get them ready for enameling.

                 Next I sifted a base coat onto each plate and that was the end of this class.

I was shocked when I walked up to Nan's shop.  She had painted these shades for her shop window.

Here is a few closeup shots of the murrel she painted. 

She is so talented and I feel lucky to have found her.

Can you believe it is raining again?!  Luckily, Super Typhoon Muifa has decided to spar Korea although they say we may get rain and wind from it on Sunday.  That's much better than a direct hit.  We are still recovering from last weeks floods.