National Folk Museum of Korea

The second day in Korea (year 2019)

My friend is so lazy because he likes to go to work every day, so, I had to spend that day alone, find an activity.

Museum!

Which one?

Seems I have seen so many of them. Maybe there’re some other great museums left?

It is so good that I have made a screenshot, so now I know the name of the museum – National Folk Museum of Korea.

I wasn’t sure, is it my first time to be there until I entered.

I felt excited this moment, being in Korea again, such a special and exotic place to me.

Even many people told me, that July is the worst time to come here due to the hot and humid weather, I want to be there now, because I am freezing here, in my cold room, and cold outside, only vodka can warm me up.

I always imagine Korea hot, because I have been only during summer, however, winter is cold there too.

Glassy futuristic skyscraper and roads full of colourful sings, contrasting relatively small, wooden-stone ancient buildings along with the buoyant green make up the face of Seoul.

On the way to the museum! I bet it is as hot there as at the hell, I have forgotten that feeling, but I see people on the photo are trying to walk in the shadow; it makes me smile now.

Then, I have entered.

Science: medicine, astronomy, geography, magic and so on.

About agriculture

The first character looks uncertain for me because I didn’t find the exact one or any variety of 農, but I think that means something like: agriculture is the base of the world. It is such a close to the Ukrainian culture phrase. About 70% of the Ukrainian land (603 000 sq km) is the agricultural land (420 000 sq km), which is 4 times more than the whole area of South Korea and even twice more than the whole area of North and South Korea together. Seems unbelievable? However, after visiting Korea I can confidently state that Ukrainians do not really understand the meaning of the phrase above. The huge land is used almost for nothing, not effectively, when you compare to the Korean one. A rain – the crops are destroyed, high temperature – crops are destroyed, wind – crops are destroyed. What I saw in Korea, that each piece of the land is used wisely, even the land seemed to be fruitless along the road is a good place to grow onion, if you know how to do it. Weather is even crazier than in Ukraine: extremely high temperatures, strong wind – nothing can harm, because the crops are protected from the sun and the ground is covered to decrease the evaporation; trees are supported to stand the strong wind. What is a naughty bird wants to eat your fruit? It is a difficult task for the bird – each fruit is covered to be protected. Moreover, a funny thing is that there’s no planning: one year plant too many onions (very cheap), next year nobody plants it (crazily expensive, import).

A cute house for chicks.

There’s a similar tool used in Ukraine to tamp ground, is it used in the same way in Korea? Fishing. A very funny tool, who do you catch with it? Medicine grinder.

My favourite place – I can sleep here. And a nice pillow, what I have seen before in other cultures, it was something solid to support the head, but this one looks pretty comfortable.

Paintings. Feel the culture.

It would be much better if I carefully read the descriptions beneath the items, but I don’t know the special words, so I just enjoyed the appearance and turn on my imagination to guess the story behind each item.

This part of the exhibition made me very upset because I was so hungry at that time, so hungry…

I need more and more foooooooood.

Later in the evening.

Hahahahah.

After the dinner, to keep me fit I participated in Dongducheon sports competition! But still, I don’t know who won…

Yangyang

The next destination after Hwacheon is Yangyang country washed by the East Sea.

Yangyang is not a big country too, having a population of over 27,000 people.

The area was called Yangyang 襄陽 since 1416. The area has a long history since it was known to be a part of Ye-guk 濊國 (3rd-century BC to around early 5th-century). Later it has become a part of Goguryeo and the area of Yangyang was called Ikhyeonhyeon 翼峴縣 or Imunhyeon 伊文縣. It is surprising for me, but both variants are quite nice (if compare to what I have seen before, Hwacheon, Boseong), the literal meaning is Wing Hill or That Culture (it is too complicated to find a proper translation for this pair of characters as the second character have too many meanings). Later, the name of the area was changed several times. In 1222, after a successful defend from Mongolians, it was renamed to Yangju 襄州, where the first character yang means a defender. Later the name was changed again until it has got its present name, consisting of the same yang 襄 and yang 陽, one of the meanings is the sun.

The way to the sea lies through many spots with beautiful scenes. Views from Hangyeryeong.

Even it is just a small observatory with a few buildings, there are many special souvenirs and amazing views to have some meal.

Step by step I am coming closer to ….

Naksan! Naksan is used to designate a few spots in the area, the first one I am going to visit is Naksan Beach.

I was swimming there a lot, that is why I did not take many photos. It is quite an awkward feeling to swim in a sea in Korea, because the swimming area is limited, and I could say it is much narrower than that one could be found in Odesa, Ukraine, moreover, there are so many active lifesavers, what makes the swimming quite tense, all the time I have to check if anybody of them is not running to catch me. I still remember the sea bottom there, it was shallow on the right and unexpectedly deep (for South Korea) on the left, about 2 m deep.

The other place called Naksan is a temple. Naksansa 洛山寺 was built in 671 by a scholar-monk Uisang 義湘 (625–702) who was a close friend of the man I met before in Soyosan and Namhae, it is Wonhyo. The temple is named after Potalaka mount as an abbreviation of the Chinese transcription of from Sanskrit, 補怛洛迦山. By the way, Bomunsa Temple I visited before in Ganghwa before stands on Nakgasan Mountain 洛迦山 which also is named after Potalaka mountain. The legend of the temple foundation explains the reason this name was chosen for the temple.

One of the legends says, when Uisang returned from the Tang empire, he heard that Guanyin Bodhisattva lived in the cave at the east coast of Naksan. He went there to pray and after 7 days praying he has received crystal beads from magic general Sinjang 神將, after 7 more days a dragon from the sea appeared and gave Uisang cintamani (wish-fulfilling jewel), after 7 more days Guanyin Bodhisattva appeared and said, “at the place you sit, a pair of bamboo will spring up, build a temple there”. As it is believed Guanyin or Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva lived in Potalaka mount, this place was called after the mount.

The temple has lived over many events during almost 1400 years. The last notable event happened in 2005 when the temple was burnt due to fire that started in the surrounding forest. The charred remains of the temple recall that day.

In 1925 Uisangdae Pavilion was built on the spot where Uisang once meditated.

Buddhist statue of Haesugwaneumsang. It was built in 1977. The height of the statue is 15 meters, the pedestal is 2.8 meters high.

And a beautiful sunset. Like a painting.

An interesting path to walk for leaving the temple.

My trip around Yangyang is coming to the end, but there is one more very important thing to do…

To eat unlimited sushi!

The huge crabs in the weak lights I saw on the way home reminded me of a horror movie.

That is all about my travelling around South Korea, tomorrow I have a flight back to Ukraine!

My Ordinary Days in South Korea

Those days when I was not travelling around South Korea usually I was going to Seoul to have some walks, probably, meet some people, have meals and so on.

My favourite location for hangout was Dongdaemun. The area has several attracting features as Dongdaemun History & Culture Park, Russian town, shopping malls, and, along with the busy city life, there are places to chill out like Dongdaemunseong-gwak Park and long Cheonggyecheon Stream. I was coming here I guess over 10 times, almost every time I was drinking beer on the stream banks.

Dongdaemunseong-gwak park is connected to Naksan park, from where one can view Seoul from the hight, especially rich areas.

A couple of kilometres to the west from Dongdaemun there is an extremely popular among tourists location called Myeongdong. The area is really overcrowded with foreigners the same as with locals too. A special feeling arises when you are among that thousands of people gathering there, however, I would not say there is something extremely special in the area, plenty of restaurants and cafes and varieties of shops. For the reason of popularity, this place was my meeting point for a few times. Sometimes I was sitting on a bench and drinking coffee from a convenience store nearby the Myeongdong catholic Church. It was my first time to visit an animal cafe with dogs.

A short walk to the west from Myeongdong, there is a very city centre of Seoul, City Hall, where I was coming for a couple of times too, like that time I went to visit Deoksugung palace. One day I came there and saw a demonstration, seems dedicated to the enprisoned ex president Park Geun-hye

박근혜를 석방하라!

On the square, there is the Seoul Metropolitan Library. The building is one of the few surviving buildings built during the Japanese occupation.

Another notable place in Dongdaemun district is Gyeongdong market, one of the largest herbal medicine and ginseng markets of South Korea.

One of the most disappointing events was my visiting of the Toilet Museum in Suwon. My expectations were extremely exaggerated maybe due to my amazing experience of visiting Museum of Sex and Health on Jeju island, maybe because this museum was recommended to be visited on Ukrainian tv, but the time I have spent to reach the museum and that what I saw there have disappointed me a lot. As I remember it took for me over three hours in one way, over 2 hours on the subway and up to one hour walking from a metro station to the museum. I was so critical about the museum because by the time I reached it I was exhausted. The museum is free for visitors, but is it quite small, and I expected to see more items, but the museum as I understand is more educational like, probably aiming very young auditory.

One funny thing I saw on the way to the museum was onion growing right on a highway side. After seeing that, I again realized how bad is Ukrainian situation, having so many “fruitful”, as all the politicians say, ground and such expensive, low-quality crops, while it seems all South Korea is covered by mountains, the area is almost 5 times smaller than the area of Ukraine, but Koreans are not starving and are far away from that.

Sometimes I was working hard on a military plant, my task was to build nuclear rockets.

Gwangnaru Park on Han-gang river bank.

Looking for souvenirs near Anguk and Jongno 3-ga metro stations, in the end, I came to Cheonggyecheon stream. These green firs remind me how hot it was there that day.

And sometimes I was somewhere around Dongducheon.

And of course, during my trip, I was eating all the food and drinking all the beer South Korea has…

An interesting thing happened to me in a shop. The vegetables are weighed on the cash desk. So, just pick those cucumbers. But why do you weigh tomatoes? Because tomatoes are fruits.

I tried my best to finish up all the reserves, but I did not succeed. I must try to do it one more time!