Dance at Seoul Tanz Station

I have been watching my girls dance ballet for over 3 years now, and I developed a desire to do it also. I stumbled upon a website while looking for English speaking art classes for my daughter that was about classes for adults. One of them was for dance. The location is in the Sinchon area, near Ewha Women's University, and the studio is Seoul Tanz Station. They offer a wide variety of classes from ballet to club dance, and yoga and pilates as well. Of course they are all in Korean, but I just watch closely and it's not hard to follow along. At times the language barrier can cause a problem on my part, simply because it would help if I could ask a question or understand some of the more complicated steps before we start, but overall it's not an issue. They do have English speaking staff at the desk, which is very helpful. Their set-up is quite convenient as well. You can either pay per class, or buy a pre-paid punch card for a set number of classes. The more pre-paid credits you buy, the cheaper. however, there is a time limit on redemption. The schedule is published and you can choose any class, show up, and dance! I was surprised at the number of older (non-college) students in my basic ballet class, but it was encouraging to know I did not enter this youthful vicariousness alone! I like what I read the other day, "Live life vivaciously, not vicariously!". Hopefully, that would be me!

Bulletin board with current & special classes and photos.

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...

Ttukseom Seoul Forest Park

I think this park is my favorite of all the parks we've visited. It is large and involves much walking, (map) but there is so much to see and do that the walking is not wearying. The park covers nearly 300 acres of what in ages past used to be kings hunting grounds, then much later a golf course, then horse track, then sports field, and now a great place for families to spend the day. It is now topically divided into five parks, all seamlessly connected. They are Cultural Art Park, Eco Forest, Experiential Learning Park, Marsh Plants Garden, and the Han River Waterside Park.

The main entrance opens to the Cultural Art Park, starting with a statue of racing horses.

Beyond that is a small sculpture garden and "Mirror Lake", which is a black stone bottomed large puddle really. It's only about an inch deep, but with the clouds and trees clearly reflected of its surface, it was quite pretty to look at.

Mirror Lake with the sculptures in back.

In the culture park there is also an outdoor stage and fountain play area. The fountains were off when we arrived, but later in the afternoon they had been turned on. I discovered later that the hours are 11:00, 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00 for one hour each, April to October. They have gender separated tents set up to allow for changing clothes. Up the path a bit from the 'lake' is a large playground area where the kids had tons of fun!

Kids can climb inside this from one foot to the other.

On the back right is the two level slide; super fun for the kids!

After a snack, we strolled through a small part of the specially planted wood area...

...then over to the Eco Forest where they have a deer corral. You can buy food to feed the deer, but we just used grass.  

After this, it was past the waterfall area where we had a brief science lesson on water-skippers...

and over to the butterfly room and insectarium, which was really a greenhouse with an area that had dead bugs on display.

Trying to get the nabi on her finger!

Insectarium

The paths are beautifully landscaped and well tended, so even just coming to stroll provides entertainment. All this, and that is only about half of the park! We will definitely be going back, especially now that fall is knocking on the door!

Samcheong-dong Walk

It has been a hot summer! We've been pretty lazy, mostly just hanging out at the house to avoid the heat. However at some point you just have to suck it up and get out. It was my bi-weekly 'mental health day', so I chose another walking tour. This one was around Samcheong-dong. I was also able to have a friend along, and we had a great time exploring, even in the heat! 

After emerging from the subway (Anguk station, exit 1), we got our bearings and started off. The first recommended stop was Seoul Selections, which is a very small English bookstore where they have a coffee/tea bar. After spending much time and money at What the Book and another used English bookstore in Itaewon, I'm not sure how Selections can compete. We went in a few small art galleries and viewed the selections. There are numerous small galleries, little restaurants, and quaint shops in this neighborhood. The farther you get from the subway, the less city-like it feels, which was a wonderful escape!

temple area

Random scene from the neighborhood.

Another recommended spot on the tour was the Owl Museum, which consists of an old woman's collection of over 2500 owl items. There was some really interesting items in there. No pictures are allowed, but admission (5000 won) does come with a drink!

owl museum

We continued the walk, trying to find the chicken art museum. We were unsuccessful, but did discover an embroidery museum and traditional painting musuem, where you can make your own items under their tutelage (reservations required). According to my book and a map I picked up on our walk, there a numerous other places like that in this area, but by this time we were hot and tired.

Nice view!

One of the numerous alleyways in the area.

This is a fantastic area of Seoul. It is across the street from Insadong, near the large and popular Gyeongbokgung Palace, the Presidential Home, and it contains the Bukchon Hanok village, an area of traditional style Korean homes. I will most definitely be going back...when the weather cools down!

Yeosu-Expo

Expo grounds map

The Yeosu-Expo, located in the southwestern part of Korea, has been on my to do list for a while now. It's overarching theme was "The Living Ocean and Coast", so most exhibits had a water topic. The Expo grounds were quite large, and we did not see all of it in the two days we spent there. We had a third day planned, but by the end of the second day we were all so tired we really didn't feel like seeing anymore. We managed to cover quite a lot of ground in those two days. Most of our time was spent in the International Pavilion, which was the most interesting part to us.

I took the girls down by train on a Tuesday morning and we spent the rest of that day in the Expo looking around the International Pavilion. It contained booths representing over 100 countries, some bigger than others. I think we made around to about 60 of them. As mentioned, the water theme prevailed. For example, in the Egypt booth, there was an iPad movie to watch in which a cartoon man tells you about Egypt's dependence on the Nile River. All of the country booths had signs about that country's relationship with water, while some were more high-tech and had interactive computer displays. They all mentioned eco-friendly things they were doing to help conserve or keep water clean. It was a good bit of hype and tourism promotion. A few of the booths deviated and did not have anything about water, but really, that was quite alright with me! (Particularly Lithuania, where a representative explained in excellent English the amber collection they were displaying.) Many of the booths had cultural displays as well, which were fun for the girls. They got to play different drums and a xylophone, and try on masks and a Yemeni veil, among other things. There were English speaking staff around to answer questions and explain things to you, and they were very friendly and informative. 

a type of instrument

Lithuania; the tubes contain amber you can view by
looking through the lens at the top.

Qatar

Cambodia 

singing bowls

My husband joined us the next day and we went back to the International Pavilion for a while. Then we walked over to the aquarium, which was supposed to be something special, but I don't know what was so special about it. It was a standard aquarium. I would say it was worth a look, but Koreans have a really hard time understanding the line concept and waiting their turn, so if you don't like pushing and shoving, you might skip this part if you've ever been to an aquarium before. It did have Beluga whales, which are pretty rare, and that was fun to see. The best part for us was the big observation tank where they had a sea turtle. Our oldest carries around a sea turtle purse (creatively named "Turt") and she was so excited when the turtle came close to her so Turt could see the real sea turtle. The things that make a parent's day!

Turt, meet sea turtle.

We browsed through the UN pavilion and went into the Kids Place, where the girls got to make a clay bowl as part of a display about celadon, Korea's pottery. They also had a flour play center, which we did once upon a time in Daegu. I wanted to go up to the observation Sky Tower, but the wait time was one hour plus, and it wasn't that special to me. We skipped many of the independent pavilions simply because of the wait time, and from what we could ascertain about the contents, they weren't worth the wait. We stuck around for the much publicized Big-O Show, and it was entertaining, though I can't say it was worth the wait or dealing with the crazy, harassing ajummas. Prior to that there was another show, "the girl from the ocean", which was all in Korean of course and I couldn't quite follow what was going on. The most entertaining part was the synchronized swimmers.  

The Big-O show

I wish we had seen more of the other pavilions, but I know Koreans and I know myself, and I know it would have been wretched trying to push and shove with them just to see the attraction. The Expo, however, was worth the visit.

Inwangsan Hillside Walk

Several weeks ago I hired a housekeeper/nanny for the sole purpose of being able to freely explore parts unknown without having to worry about the little ones. Some days I simply hide in a coffee shop and read, but usually I try to see something new. Last week I did something I have always wanted to do: I got on the subway and chose some random stop I've never been to and just meandered. I ate at a random restaurant that served only two choices, both in Korean, so that made that decision fairly simple. Then I just walked. It wasn't a particularly exciting or noteworthy place in Seoul, but it was fun to just explore. You never know what's around the corner! 

Today I made a more deliberate choice. On Mondays almost all attractions in Korea are closed, so my choices are limited. (I am switching the nanny schedule to Friday for this very reason.) So I chose a walking tour outlined in my Seoul guidebook. There was nothing especially intriguing about this tour, but it got me outside, it wasn't too far, and it said that there would be terrific views of Seoul. I never get tired of the city views! The walk from the subway exit was considerably more challenging than I anticipated, and I began to wonder if the sights would be worth it. Inwangsan is supposed to be a very spiritual mountain because of the clustering Buddhist temples and Shamanist shrines. I don't know about any of that. The shrines and temples in this area are not with mentioning; I didn't even take any pictures. The walk was steep, but the view from the top was awesome. 

The trail back down was easy, quiet, and peaceful. You could easily forget you were in the city. The walking tour ends near Seodaemun Prison, now a museum. It was built to house dissenters against the Japanese occupation, then later used by the Korean government for the same purpose. It was closed today so I could only view the outside perimeter. Just down the street is Dongnimmun, or Indepedence Gate, built as a memorial (or declaration? not quite sure) of Korea's independence from Japan. There are also several memorial statues close by.

freedom fighters memorial

Independence Gate

Seodaemun Entrance

All of the places above are in a park like setting, Seodaemun Independence Park, which was being well-used that day by the area's senior citizens, and is easily accessible by subway. I'll be coming back at some point to tour the prison museum.

All in all it was a day well spent!