Korean War Memorial and Museum

It's been a busy time for us Seoulites, as Christmas (and trips home for most of us) is right around the corner! I wanted spend this weekend doing a few things that I have been meaning to for four months, but haven't yet, so that I would be able to share them with friends and family back home. On the top of that list was visiting the Korean War Memorial and Museum. It's credited as the largest war memorial in the world and noted as one of the top five things to do in Korea.

Liz and I went to the museum this morning and the whole experience can best be described as impressive. The Museum is very well organized and hugely informative; as well as interactive! There a lots of animatronic displays of famous battles and projected videos explaining their history. The museum fee was about 3 bucks and an audio guide was 2. They had guides in Korean, Chinese, Japanese and English! Basically, if you follow the plan (which is marked with arrows every 100 feet!) you circle up three floors, across the top, and then around the bottom three again. The first floor is all about Korea's history of warfare - which is mainly with China and Japan. The next two floors are dedicated to the Korean War; one tells the history of the war, and the other shows what life for Koreans and soldiers alike was like during the war. The exhibit ends with a combat simulator and a series of videos featuring veterans and survivors of the war (which were all in Korean). The combat simulator appeared to be closed - but that was okay with us. The rest of the museum gives information on Korea's involvement in other wars since the Korean War, and also has an extensive exhibit on the Korean navy and Korea's contemporary weaponry.

The most amusing thing was that many of the documentary-type films had famous movie soundtracks as their score - we heard Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones. That, or maybe the painting depicting the Koreans defense against Japanese pirates where in the corner one pirate definitely had a sword for an arm (sort of trumps Captain Hook). The most moving thing was an exhibit called "The Drop" which is a sculpture of a tear drop encircled with thorns of barbed wire and is made out of around 1300 ID tags of fallen soldiers. Also to the left of the entrance is a walkway listing all of those killed in action and what State or Province and Country they were from. Above it a quote from the Korean War memorial in D.C. is inscripted; "Our Nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met." .... Sort of sums up the sentiment of an American expat in Korea.

In front of the museum are a number of monuments dedicated to the nations who fought for the Republic of Korea (even though South Koreans still feel slighted that troops pulled out before unification was achieved), and to all Koreans, and many expressing sadness over the loss of their brothers to the North.


It was a great museum and a great day! We found out while we were there that the Dead Sea Scrolls have just arrived, and will be here till June! I had wanted to visit this exhibit when it was in San Diego and never got the chance, so I am very excited to be able to go after Christmas! Visiting the museum, I feel like I really learned a lot about Korea and definitely have a bit more perspective on the culture. Now it's out to (where else) Itaewon for some good Western food at an Irish pub called Wolfhound with Andrea, Carla and a few others. Tomorrow night we have our Secret Santa gift exchange amongst the CUA kids and then it's only 5 short days till I go home for Christmas. Can't wait!!