Seoul 10
Yesterday, I started out at the Korean war memorial. Which is a museum. An awesome one.
It's a free museum. While there's definitely a focus on the Korean War, it does talk about war, in Korea, in general.
Also, it's awesome before you even get inside, because the grounds are COVERED in tanks and fighter planes and bombers and missiles and every damn thing, and you can walk right up to them, touch them, some of them you can go inside (I barely fit in a Korean tank which makes me wonder how me get in there. Probably uncomfortably).
Here, I saw a big gun you could stand behind like you were using it and I found someone near by and asked them to take my picture. Turned out to be a Chinese guy and his wife.
Chinese people really like me. I've never quite understood.
After taking the picture for me, he took a picture of me standing with his wife. They left and a few minutes later they found me again, having brought along a few friends, and took group pictures with me.
I... don't get it.
Anyways, I finally headed inside. It was a nice museum. there's a memorial hall that leads you downstairs where you see more historical things (yes, including hwachas. booya).
You go upstairs and there's a giant children's play area oo
There's also a lot on the Korean war, including an entire exhibit basically thanking the UN, and highlighting individually the countries that came to the ROK's aid. There was a video where some time recently, they brought back a bunch of Korean war vets to Korea to marvel on what Seoul and Korea has become, and the whole video is just seeing their reactions to that country they fought to defend. And it made me cry. I'm crying writing about it now.
There are also two different '4d rides' in the museum. Basically you put on 3d glasses and go on a moving bank of seats and they spray water at you and blow wind on you. I only did one because while I enjoy them, I do tend to feel ill afterwards so I didn't think I could handle two in short succession. In mine, general macarthur tells us that he's decided to take Incheon even though he's been told we have a 1-5000 chance of victory. I got to 'fly' a fighter craft, a landing boat, and ride through the streets on a tank.
It was 7 minutes long, totally free. The rides go every 30 minutes as long as there are at least 5 people there.
Finally I left and went to Yongsan. I knew there was a big Gundam Base and some other hobby stores in the Ipark mall so I hit there first. There was also a book store but it was lame. No Japanese magazines at all? come on... THe gundam base was huge. I was pretty disturbed that they not only had TWO versions of the nobel gundam, but both were sold out. Scary...
I didn't buy anything. I knew there was a big electronics market (kinda like the migliore of electronics, just dozens of tiny stores all squeezed in together) and I had the information open on a page in my phone which usually works but... it didn't, meaning I didn't know how to get there. I went back to my hostel, figuringI'd reload the page and take a break, but reading the page at the hostel I realized that it closed earlier than I'd expected and would be closing by the time I got back so that got put off.
I decided to walk to the subway station past itaewon that I hadn't been to because I wanted simple kimbap and they don't really have that in itaewon. Well, I did find some kimbap and I thought I could loop around back to Itaewon.
*coughs*
an hour later I finally found a subway station after getting wildly lost. Took me 5 subway stations and one line transfer to get back to Itaewon. I still don't know how I did it.
It's a free museum. While there's definitely a focus on the Korean War, it does talk about war, in Korea, in general.
Also, it's awesome before you even get inside, because the grounds are COVERED in tanks and fighter planes and bombers and missiles and every damn thing, and you can walk right up to them, touch them, some of them you can go inside (I barely fit in a Korean tank which makes me wonder how me get in there. Probably uncomfortably).
Here, I saw a big gun you could stand behind like you were using it and I found someone near by and asked them to take my picture. Turned out to be a Chinese guy and his wife.
Chinese people really like me. I've never quite understood.
After taking the picture for me, he took a picture of me standing with his wife. They left and a few minutes later they found me again, having brought along a few friends, and took group pictures with me.
I... don't get it.
Anyways, I finally headed inside. It was a nice museum. there's a memorial hall that leads you downstairs where you see more historical things (yes, including hwachas. booya).
You go upstairs and there's a giant children's play area oo
There's also a lot on the Korean war, including an entire exhibit basically thanking the UN, and highlighting individually the countries that came to the ROK's aid. There was a video where some time recently, they brought back a bunch of Korean war vets to Korea to marvel on what Seoul and Korea has become, and the whole video is just seeing their reactions to that country they fought to defend. And it made me cry. I'm crying writing about it now.
There are also two different '4d rides' in the museum. Basically you put on 3d glasses and go on a moving bank of seats and they spray water at you and blow wind on you. I only did one because while I enjoy them, I do tend to feel ill afterwards so I didn't think I could handle two in short succession. In mine, general macarthur tells us that he's decided to take Incheon even though he's been told we have a 1-5000 chance of victory. I got to 'fly' a fighter craft, a landing boat, and ride through the streets on a tank.
It was 7 minutes long, totally free. The rides go every 30 minutes as long as there are at least 5 people there.
Finally I left and went to Yongsan. I knew there was a big Gundam Base and some other hobby stores in the Ipark mall so I hit there first. There was also a book store but it was lame. No Japanese magazines at all? come on... THe gundam base was huge. I was pretty disturbed that they not only had TWO versions of the nobel gundam, but both were sold out. Scary...
I didn't buy anything. I knew there was a big electronics market (kinda like the migliore of electronics, just dozens of tiny stores all squeezed in together) and I had the information open on a page in my phone which usually works but... it didn't, meaning I didn't know how to get there. I went back to my hostel, figuringI'd reload the page and take a break, but reading the page at the hostel I realized that it closed earlier than I'd expected and would be closing by the time I got back so that got put off.
I decided to walk to the subway station past itaewon that I hadn't been to because I wanted simple kimbap and they don't really have that in itaewon. Well, I did find some kimbap and I thought I could loop around back to Itaewon.
*coughs*
an hour later I finally found a subway station after getting wildly lost. Took me 5 subway stations and one line transfer to get back to Itaewon. I still don't know how I did it.