award plaque: the sexy reveal

So!  I think the award-plaque makers dragged their feet and took their sweet time, but I generally like the final product.  I got a text message earlier today saying the plaque had been finished, so I texted back that I'd be there around 7 p.m. to pick it up and pay for it.  The shop is in a tucked-away part of the Jongno neighborhood, so I had to use Naver Map to navigate my way through the back alleys to find the place again.  The older lady who had spoken with me last time greeted me again this time.  She made a special point of telling me that they had tried out two different designs—the one with the white background and the one meant to be on a black surface—and in the end, they agreed that the black-surface plaque won out.  I saw the plaque and was delighted.  There were a few things I would have wanted, like engraved lettering and a gold-colored font and dragon, but overall, I was happy with the end product, and I think my buddy JW will appreciate it, too.

So here's the slow, sexy reveal of the plaque, done up as a blogged version of a YouTube "unboxing" video (I don't know why those are so popular; maybe it's because they're the nerd's version of a striptease).  Enjoy the following parade of images.

The staff had promised me they'd have the plaque all done up as a gift.  They weren't kidding.  Here's the plaque inside the cute little bag they gave me:

Excitement builds.  Below is the plaque, now outside of its bag, but still encased in its box-within-a-box (the outer box is more like a sleeve, I think):

Here is the velvet-surfaced box, fairly standard for this sort of award:

The box is open!  What—oh, what—could possibly be inside?

At long last:  the reveal!

And just to gild the lily, a porn-y closeup:

Below:  one last look.  The above two photos unfortunately reflect the bubble wrap in the plaque's top fourth, so I'm providing a different angle to allow you to appreciate the shiny blackness of the plaque's surface:

And there we are.  I hope my friend appreciates his prize.  There's nothing official or authoritative about it; it's merely a gesture of friendship and respect.  Walking 120 kilometers, even in a haphazard way, is nothing to sneeze at, and as is often the case with many such awards, this only signifies the beginning of what I hope will be a long, long walking career.