Day 21 - National Museum of Korea

Today, I went to class as usual. In my Premodern Korean History class we were told about our midterms next week (so soon!) and an upcoming group project that we'll be working on.

After class, I went and ate lunch but then felt very tired so I took a short nap.

The front of the museum

After napping, I decided to head back to the National Museum of Korea. We went there as a group on my second day in Korea, but were only able to spend about 30 minutes in the museum. Admission into the museum is free so I figured I might as well go!

The view from the back terrace of the museum. Seoul Tower is barely visible in the distance (on the mountain).

It took about 30 minutes to get to the museum via the subway, which is actually connected to the museum grounds by an underground walking tunnel.

The main hall of the museum. All of the exhibits are in large rooms to the left and right.

Once inside, I decide to walk around all of the exhibits on the ground floor, which go through all the time periods of premodern Korean history, starting in the Jeulmun period (about 8000 B.C.) up through the Joseon kingdom, which lasted until 1897. They had all of the exhibits arranged in chronological order and it was really interesting to see the progression of the civilization.

The first movable metal type, developed in Korea in 1234.

Japanese samurai armor and katana

Additionally, they had a small Japanese exhibit that had some cool artifacts as well as a very cool exhibit that had books and scrolls and maps from the Joseon kingdom (1392-1897).

The national code of Joseon, 1661 (left) and books printed with movable metal type (right).

The first world map created in Joseon. It includes China, Japan, Korea, and India.

After the museum, I hopped back on to the train and met five other friends and we went to this Korean barbecue place that we call "The Barracks". It has a Korean name that I always forget, but we call it The Barracks because it has a five or six Korean flags hanging outside and they constantly play Korean patriotic music through a speaker system in the streets. We go there pretty frequently because they have the best samgyeopsal in the area for a pretty decent price, in our opinion.

After I dinner, I went back and turned in early because the DMZ trip was the next day!