Sunday

War Memorial Museum

07/03/2011 70 °F

Pouring rain again this morning. Late start. After breakfast, kids got involved in watching the movie Avatar on tv. It was in English with Korean sub titles, which was only a problem when the avatar people were talking in their weird language the subtitles were still Korean, not English, obviously. Henry wanted to watch the end, so Andrew, Sami, and I went out for a walk. When I say we got caught in torrential rain, I am not exaggerating. We went back to Insadong to get a few more last minute souvenirs. Andrew and I started out sharing an umbrella, but after 10 minutes, we stopped at a shop and purchased another (umbrellas are pretty cheap, this one was 3000 won which is about $2.80, and available everywhere, as it is the rainy season). We returned to the hotel with soaking we feet from sloshing through the "streams" that were forming in the streets.

Finally, got out of the room after noon and made our way to the subway. The rain had slowed a bit by then. We headed to the Korean War Memorial Museum which was not far, maybe about 8 subway stops away. This place was truly impressive. The grounds are expansive and there is a large collection of tanks, artillery guns, airplanes, transport vehicles, etc. We decided to walk around the grounds outside first and then go into the museum, which was fine for the first ten minutes until another total deluge began and we all got soaked despite our raincoat and/or umbrellas (not all of us opted to bring both).

The museum is maybe my favorite attraction that we saw while we were here. It was beautifully put together, modern, high-tech, multimedia, etc. There was a floor dedicated to the history of war in korea from the 300's through the mid 1900's, another floor dedicated to the Korean war, and a third with interactive exhibits, but by the time we made it to that floor it was a half hour until closing time and most of the interactive stuff was already closed. More for next time. Everyone was engaged through out the three to four hours that we spent there.

Stopped for dinner on the way home at the same place we went on our first night, where we already new the prices ...

Now turning in for the night to prepare for the longest Fourth of July ever. I think we figured out that our Fourth of July tomorrow will be 36 hours long! Looking forward to being back in the good 'ol USA...

Posted by Gailpwr 07:23 Archived in South Korea