Citizens are enjoying the festival by shooting hot spring water guns at the Yuseong Hot Spring Festival held on Oncheon-ro in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon in the first decade of May 2025. (Photo by Shin Hyeon-jong)

At this year’s Venice Bienniale in Italy, the Korean pavilion has a curious exhibit called “Commissions for Utopia”. It includes renderings from North Korea’s top architects and artists (all anonymous), many of whom studied at the Paekho Institute of Architecture, North Korea’s state-run architectural college, and none of whom have ever left the country. They were asked to create a vision of North Korea’s future sustainable architecture for its expanding tourism industry. Their final products are a glimpse into what it would be like to envision the future after being entirely cut off from the present for almost 70 years. (Photo by Nick Bonner/Kyle Vanhemert/Venice Architecture Biennale)

A sales assistant poses for photographs with a mealworm cookie in Seoul, South Korea, August 8, 2016. Insect-eating, or entomophagy, has long been common in much of the world, including South Korea, where boiled silky worm pupae, or beondegi, are a popular snack. Now, South Korea is looking to expand its insect industry as a source of agricultural income. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Passengers from the ferry sinking off South Korea's southern coast are rescued by the South Korean Coast guard in the water off the southern coast near Jindo, south of Seoul, on April 16, 2014. Almost 300 people were missing after a ferry sank off South Korea on Wednesday, the coastguard said, in what could be the country's biggest peacetime disaster in nearly 20 years. (Photo by AP Photo)

Buddhist monks wait for a lantern parade ahead of the upcoming birthday of Buddha at Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, May 11, 2024. (Photo by Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

Firefighters take part in the bodybuilding event during a firefighting skills contest at the National Fire Service Academy in Gongju, South Korea on June 3, 2024. (Photo by Shin Hyeon-jong)

Foreign tourists who visited the “Boryeong Mud Festival” venue in Boryeong-si, Chungcheongnam-do on the July 19th, 2024 are having fun rolling around in a mud bath. The 27th Boryeong Mud Festival this year will be held until the 4th of next month. Last year, more than 1.6 million tourists visited the festival. (Phoot by Shin Hyeon-jong)

At the 2025 Spring Commencement Ceremony held at Dongguk University in Jung-gu, Seoul on the morning of the February 13th, 2025, graduates are taking graduation photos while riding on elephant statues. Only graduates are allowed to ride on the school's famous elephant statue of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. (Photo by Park Seong-won)