We found a queue of folks waiting to get their 1-minute portraits done. After navigating the system (you had to buy a beverage at the coffee shop first and show your receipt in order to have the 1000 won portrait) and pushing and getting pushed through the line of locals waiting to have theirs done, we finally got to sit for ours.
Here is a weirdly reflective shot of Janine getting her portrait done.
This was gonna be really great, areyoufeelingme? Who doesn't love a quickie caricature?
I'll tell you who doesn't--ME.
And when I say "ME," I refer to the apparently 80-year-old me on the bottom left. (Thanks for making sure not to miss any facial lines or worry marks, mister. Note to self: need a better night cream.) I chalked it up to having my hair pulled back and, um, to the cruel hand of time. (Still, the guy's a jerk.) So I channeled my let-down into excitement to see my colleagues' cute portraits. But then Karin came out with the weird one at bottom right. And so we both put our energy into thinking/hoping that Janine's was gonna be GREAT--not only because her hair was down and she's a pretty lady, but also the universe wouldn't throw THREE doggy portraits our way... right? We're thinking that we paid our 3000 won just like the rest of the Koreans walking out with darling one-of-a-kind artwork so at least one of us was gonna get a nice portrait... until Janine walked out and showed us herself re-imagined as a frightened pauper child. WH-HUT? This leaves me with two theories: (1) This is actually how we looked to a random Korean coffee shop-artist, or (2) That guy's totally racist. Or maybe maybe maybe it's simply a case of getting what we paid for.
