Sungshin Women's University Tour

I had the opportunity to be part of an escorted tour of Sungshin University that was arranged by a Korean officer's wife who works there. (At this point, Korean etiquette would dictate that I say wonderful impressive things about this couple and my connections to them, but I'm not Korean, so...) I went solo, my husband's exact words being "Why on earth would I want to tour a women's college?". To my surprise, since this was arranged primarily for American servicemembers and their spouses, most of my fellow tourists were Korean. Someone said this was due to the above parenthetical comment; I don't know, I just found it surprising.

We had a brief talk about the university founder, then over to the ROTC section. After that it was the small art museum that houses a 150 year old and very special map of Korea called daedong yeojido, or grand map of Korea. (They explained it to us, and while it was interesting, I won't go into details here.) Then we had to sit through a propaganda talk about the Korean education system, in which he even used a brief clip of President Obama speaking. I have many of my own thoughts on the Korean system, the American system, Korean v. American systems, and Obama, but this isn't the forum. Neither was that, so I kept my mouth clamped shut. Next, we were shuttled over to the second campus, called the eco-campus, composed of four buildings. I think it was 'eco' because it had several trees planted and they made use of natural light so as not to rely so much on electric lights. It was a very small and compact campus by any standard. We were served a delicious Korean lunch, and then had a tour of this campus. This included a small natural history museum consisting mostly of plants, and what they called costume museum, but was actually a hanbok museum. We also got to sample three different traditional teas and rice cakes and rice candy. These rice cakes were different from what I've had before, and were quite good. The tour concluded with performances of traditional Korean dance performed by students majoring in traditional dance.

Learning about the founder.

eco-campus

yum!

Art gallery A, at the eco-campus, a spiral ramp with art
work displayed. You can see the natural light.

tea & rice cakes

I wish there was more to write, but that's pretty much it. I didn't learn anything new or exciting, but I did enjoy the day.

Seodaemun Natural History Museum and Hello Kitty Cafe: Sinchon

We're back into school days around here, which simply means more focused outings and a little more sit down table work. I discovered this museum and thought it looked like a good place visit. Off we went, rainy day and all, to the subway. Unfortunately, I forgot to get the name of the museum in Korean. Since we had to take a taxi from the subway exit to the museum, this was a problem. Fortunately, some random, kind, English speaking Korean lady saw I was having trouble with the taxi and graciously and accurately interpreted for me. (Score for the Koreans!)

main lobby

The museum is divided into three main sections, labeled in my own terms: environment, animal history, and geology. There is no English except for the main titles, so I had to figure out and explain it to the girls on my own. (It wasn't that difficult.) The size of the building belies the scope of the exhibits inside. The actual museum displays are not that expansive, but they are very well done.

The above picture is part of the display on land animals. They are all real, stuffed animals. They also a large display of birds, one section being birds native to Korea, and displays on insects and fish as well.

Han River eco-system display

geology

In my opinion it was a great museum and well worth the trip out there. After all this schooling, I decided to treat the girls to the Hello Kitty Cafe, which was located near the subway. HK is popular even among the college age gals here. Hello Kitty fans, eat your heart out.

hanbok Hello Kitties

All the couches and chairs were HK emblazoned. And tables,
and dishes, and food...