Seoul: First Look

Myeongdong district, Seoul

We spent the past four days in Seoul to get a feel for the place we will soon be calling home, at least for the next year or so, and I have a good feeling about it now!

We took the KTX, Koreas can't-even-compare version of the Shinkansen, up to Seoul. We arrived at lunch time and soon found a TGIFridays! Ahhhh; comfort food takes many forms, even when Koreanized. We stayed at the post hotel and had a quiet evening in that night. The next day was consumed with being shown all the necessary things to know on-post and visiting the housing office. So, only two days left for touring Seoul city, at least on this trip.

The pre-planned first stop was Korea's National Museum, currently housing a special exhibit on the Silk Road China trade route. The magnitude of the building was definitely impressive.

It was impossible to take a picture of the entire museum. (As you can tell from the defrosting lake, it's warming up here!) The special exhibition was disappointing. There were no pictures allowed - strictly enforced, even though much of what was on display were replicas. Another flaw (for us) was that while there were English translations as to what you were seeing, there were no explanations of the story behind the item. We went over to the permanent exhibit part, which has a fairly detailed history and artifacts of Korea's long kingdom history. They have a 'medieval' section, which conjured up much different images in my Western oriented mind than was displayed in this Asian museum! After a while so much foreign history can be quite overwhelming, so we saw only a fraction of what is in this museum. Fortunately, the permanent exhibits are admission free, so we can spend plenty more days meandering about!

the one photo my hubs sneaked!

Next up, the War Memorial (or museum) of Korea.

(I don't know what they're doing behind that big ugly Chevrolet thing. It is temporary.) This is an excellent museum detailing the history of Korean warfare from prehistoric times, with much attention given to the Korean War in particular. This is also a large museum, and we actually went over the course of two days.

various types of Korean military dress; varies by rank, etc

part of the outside exhibits

This is the "Drop", a memorial to UN soldiers killed during the Korean War, made from their dog tags.

In the War Museum there were a few more unrelated exhibits. I guess they rent out their empty space. One was another trick art display, and the other was a Da Vinci. We chose the Da Vinci. It was small, but excellent. Of course everything was replicas. This was clearly stated, being that any of his creations actually built in his time are too fragile to be in a moving exhibit. There was a "no photos" rule here also, but it was not being enforced like the China exhibit, so we got a few shots of the inside.

tank concept

robot soldier idea

helicopter design

The man was amazing! The scope of his thoughts is all-encompassing, from weather instruments to war craft. And then his skill with painting as well. Brilliant!