Destination
Revisited: Oedo (Geoje-do, Gyeongsangnam-do)
0Author’s note: ‘Revisited’ posts are intended to be a fresh look at a place I’ve visited before. In many cases, it will have been years between visits, and offers a chance to see a place with a fresh set of eyes (and more than likely, a much better camera than I had before!). While they won’t replace the old post, directions and information for visitors will always be included.
Despite a rather curious acronym, the island of Oedo (pronounced ‘weh-do’) remains gorgeous year-round. It certainly wasn’t warm enough to ditch the jacket, but the sizable percentage of evergreen plants or trees More >
Destination: Woori Bank Museum (central Seoul)
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Having recently re-visited the Bank Museum in downtown Seoul, I was happy to see it hadn’t changed before making my way to Myeongdong and otherwise enjoying the area.
It was a couple weeks later when I was walking through that same pedestrian overpass and realized that Woori Bank had their own museum to take in. It’s in the building’s basement, and went unnoticed for far too long. To be fair, of course, being in the basement and having little in the way of outside advertisement means it’s bound to feel a little… lonely…
Entering the museum is simple enough, but curious – you’ll be directed More >
Revisited: Bank of Korea Museum (downtown Seoul)
1Author’s note: ‘Revisited’ posts are intended to be a fresh look at a place I’ve visited before. In many cases, it will have been years between visits, and offers a chance to see a place with a fresh set of eyes (and more than likely, a much better camera than I had before!). While they won’t replace the old post, directions and information for visitors will always be included.
Revisiting places means paying attention to what’s new, what’s different, or what’s been made more unusual. The opening is similar enough, telling the history of the Bank of Korea – and how the country couldn’t have More >
Destination: the Cheonggyecheon Museum and the historically questionable shacks (Seoul)
1If you read blogs about South Korea, you may have come across Seoul Sub>urban, a blog that visits the immediate vicinity of a random subway station in Seoul to see what’s around. After a fairly recent post about Yongdu station, a couple of the destinations looked interesting enough to visit myself.
The gridded tower you see above, by the way, is essentially a spiral – inside is just enough room to hide from traffic – and despite the grid is private from all but the most observant bystanders.
A look from the inside of the aforementioned tower.
OK, so the main show here is the Cheonggyecheon More >
Destination: Goseong Dinosaur Museum (Goseong, Gyeongsangnam-do)
1And now for something a bit different – presenting a museum dedicated to those huge beasts from eons ago. The area claims some Real Dinosaur Footprints along the shore, which is conveniently within walking distance of the museum. The museum, however, remains a remote reach from Seoul – a day trip from Busan, certainly, and well worth a spot on any weekend itinerary to the area.
Never mind the fact that violence permeates the animation or computer-generated programs rated ’7′ - we have dinosaurs to watch!
It should be noted – albeit while smothering a laugh – that dozens of ‘no pictures’ More >
Destination: Okpo Great Victory Commemorative Park (Geoje-do, Gyeongsangnam-do)
0Save for King Sejong, that inventor of the Korean alphabet, Admiral Yi Sun-shin serves as Korea’s second-most looked-up-to historical figure. His deeds of defense during the attempted Japanese invasion in the late 16th century remain memorialized here and in other forms across the country.
This museum and shrine aims to document the weapons and clothes of the time – that big gun in the front is called a 천자총통 (cheon-ja-chong-tong) – and I dare say you’d need two hands attached to two fairly strong people to carry that thing.
Paintings and (reproduction) swords from the fight.
Clothing and More >
Destination: Geoje Shipbuilding Marine Museum (Geoje-do, Gyeongsangnam-do)
1As a peninsula, Korea has had plenty of reasons to develop industries that play nice with the water mostly surrounding it. Centuries before Korea became North and South, there was plenty of shipbuilding activities, though much of the rhetoric is more recent. Yes, it looks like a ship, but the ‘mast’ actually serves as a look out over the southern sea.
If you arrive earlier in the day, you can also take in the 거제어촌민속전시관 (Geo-je eo-chon min-sok jeon-shi-gwan), or the Geoje Fishing Village Folk Museum right next door. This full-size version of Yi Sun-shin’s turtle ship is in-between the two More >
Destination: National Tax Museum (downtown Seoul)
1Now that the end of the world has come and gone, the same two things in the world are certain: death and taxes. The first won’t be happening for many decades from now, but the latter is a reality we all have to live with. We decided to check out the Tax Museum to learn a few things about how things are done here in Korea.
It’s from the very beginning that it’s clear someone’s been drinking the kool-aid. Perhaps taxes have generated the money necessary to build the country, but the propaganda gets better.
As with most museums, they start with the traditional exhibits – an abacus, old ID’s, More >
Destination: Munmyo Confucian Shrine and Seonggyungwan Academy (northeast Seoul)
1If you like exploring Seoul’s lesser-known corners, this one’s for you. The place goes by a few different names: Seoul Confucian Shrine, Munmyo Confucian Shrine, Seonggyungwan National Confucian Academy, and even Sungkyunkwan University’s Confucian Shrine. Whatever name you give it, it’s a historical site (#143), and was first founded in 1398 – the infancy of the Joseon Dynasty. Honoring Confucius and his disciples The shrine holds a twice-annual ceremony to this day, and holds the ancestral tablets for them all in Daesongjeon (the main hall). Like virtually every older building throughout More >
Destination: Barterlines (Seoul, South Korea)
1What is art worth?
That’s the question asked here – and a number of artists are participating in an exchange of value that remains to be quantified. Although it ends today (3 Feb 2013), Barterlines aims to make barters between artists and people who appreciate their art. Through their website, one could make a bid on the piece(s) you like, offering your skill or talent to make an exchange with the artist. The twist here is that the artist chooses which bid they want to accept, since it’s difficult to quantify these sort of things.
The building, Eloquence magazine’s future headquarters, is More >
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