On My Way To Korea

Independence Movement Day (or 3.1) is a Korean holiday which celebrates the Korean independence movement against Japan during the Japanese colonization.  A friend told me to visit the Independence Hall at some point so I decided that I might as well make it my last trip before school starts.  The only thing that sucked (big time) was that it was raining and cold.  By the time I left I couldn’t really feel my fingers.  The second to last pic is a group, YGK (Youth of Great Korea), which did a quick interview with me and took a pic.

At the end, all I could think about was that I wish we didn’t need places like this.

I visited the National Museum of Korea today.  I caught a small cold so I’ve stayed inside the past two days to rest and recuperate.  With how cold and wet it is out there it’s probably not best to spend too much time outside.  Well, after two days of recuperation I decided to venture out into the land where the living walk.  I made the decision today to try to to indoors things for the next few days, which means I’ll be going to all the museums I can find.  I’ll go to the palaces and things when the weather is a little more friendly.  Anyways, here’s my pics from Korea’s largest museum:

Admittance Fee: 5,000원 (though I think you can get a special pass to multiple things).

It was really fun going through and seeing the scenes they had set up of people doing various ceremonies and what not.  If you’re by Lotte World, definitely drop by.

I found some interesting pottery (three pics, first was when I was saying what’s so interesting about that and the third is the moment of realization that this wasn’t normal pottery …).  It’s not just the fact of what pictured, it’s the fact that the guy has like a 5th arm … You’ll know it when you see it.

It’s been interesting, every time I’ve taken the subway very far I’ve always seen something being sold on the subway.  I couldn’t help but laugh a little when I saw a sign on the subway specifically saying not to sell or buy anything on the train.

On my way to meet an old friend I haven’t seen for three years, I found myself with an extra hour to kill next to Insadong (인사동).  After looking at the local map I decided to head over to the Gyeongbok palace (which is actually closed on Tuesdays ><).  The only thing I really got to see due to time constraints on the palace being closed was the National Palace Museum of Korea.  It was FREEZING cold which probably contributed to very few people being there.  I guess that’s one positive side of the coldness, you don’t have to fight the crowds.  I only got to see about a third of just this museum (there’s another museum, the Folk Museum) so I’m definitely going to have to come back.  Here’s some pics I took inside:

This is a training manual for the guards I believe:

I bet the 아줌마들 (ladies) used these.  And the kids complain today …

I saw that it was getting close to 1PM so I headed back towards Insadong to meet my friend Raina.  We started walking through Insadong to get lunch and came to this place:

The food was pretty good, but expensive.  It was 15,000원 per person since we got a sampler meal (a little of everything).  We left and started walking through Insadong again.  At this point, we realized that it probably wasn’t the best day to be outside.  It was definitely the coldest it’s been since I’ve been here.  So, we took every opportunity to go into souvenir shops, a coffee shop, an exhibition, and the biggest 교보 bookstore:

It looks like I’m all caught up with my pics and posts through now!