National Museum of Korea

So over the weekend we went and saw about two-thirds of the museum of Korea.  It is about a 15 minute walk from where we live and it is free to visit all the permanent exhibits.  It was really cool to go see their museum and see how everything started the same pretty much everywhere in the world and then over time different cultures emerged.  It was cool to learn more about the history of Korea and their culture.  I took a ton of pictures and it is too many to put in this blog so I will create an album on facebook with all of the pictures.

 All areas of the world pretty much started in the same place.

 Alden enjoyed looking at everything and jabbering. We called him "our little tour guide."  Here is a couple videos of him at the museum.
Alden at the museum
Alden likes the museum

 I thought the jade was really neat partially because it is more unique to the area.

 Duck shaped pottery was apparently really popular....there was a lot of it.

 The crowns from Korea were made of gold pressed really thin like in this photo.

 This are examples of things painted on the walls of tombs (sorry about the reflections)

 Drew was having fun!

This pagoda is 15 stories tall (I'm not sure how they are measuring that)  but it was really cool.

 Typical portraits that were painted in Korea.

 This is a replica of stone chimes they used to use.

 A replica of a throne room, very similar to the one we saw at the palace that we visited.

 The beginning of books in Korea

 I love the paintings of all the blossoms!

 Some things don't seem to change anywhere...

 The museum had a whole section on calligraphy.

 I thought this was really cool because it showed the stages to how they used to do portraits.

Pretty scene and a cute  dog with it's puppies.

 Okay this was interesting.  It shows the symbolism to different animals and flowers...who would have guessed that a butterfly represented an 80 year old man?

 This was a demon that had another statue stepping on it originally.

 Alden enjoying looking at the exhibits and having Daddy explain!

 We thought this table was really pretty.

 Lots of turtles and animals in art.

 Okay if you think this looks like a helmet from Greece, that is because it is.  It was given as a gift to the first Korean Olympian to win an event in the Olympics.  He competed under a Japanese name and with their team in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and won the marathon.  His Japanese coaches blocked the presentation of the helmet to him so it sat in museum in Berlin for 50 years until it was finally presented to him in 1987.

We walked through Yongsan family park again on our way home.