National Museum of Korea and the Vultures of Condor

Sorry I haven't for a while everyone. I had intensive classes, which were only twice a week, but for whatever reason, those 930AM-10PM days left me completely exhausted. Who would have thought. Thank heavens I wasn't doing that 6 days a week!

So I am finally writing my blog about the National Museum of Korea.

After Elaine, Carrie and I wandered around looking at nature, we heading to the National Museum of Korea, which you can see pictures of the outside two posts back.

The stairs were painted for the special exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum. It looked kind of awesome.


We also saw this awesome stroller:


We entered the building, which had a very cool entrance. This is what it looked like:

There were several floors in the museum, beginning with the earliest people. This exhibit included things like:

The "Jar Coffin" aka an urn

Some knives

Some necklaces:

Most of the things in the museum were labeled very specifically and helpfully. For example, these were labeled as "Bronze Z-Shaped Artifacts"

These ducks:

And these very comfortable looking bronze shoes.

And these cool paintings

Also this guy. Remember him?

Here are some Hindu gods.

I learned while looking at this that the word "Hindu god" is the same in Korean as in English. I know this because the people standing next to me were speaking in Korean and all of a sudden I understood "Hindu god" as they were speaking.

We continued on, which lead to this dragon, which is described as a "4th century Tripod Cauldron with Handle." As I think you may notice, the English translations and information were not very helpful...

This awesome helmet

A chastity belt...errr, wait, no I don't know what this is

This guy who's looking a little menacing

This thing with a Phoenix on top described as "Ring pommel"

These are "Silver Diadem Ornaments" err... Gold?

Oh look, more Placenta jars!

Here is a pot with a fish on it:

Some donkey/giraffe figurines, which are looking very happy

Some clay figurines, which I have concluded 2 year olds made.

More interesting things with dragons on them


This was pretty cool:

This stoic sheep

And this sword, which I took a picture of just for Grant.

This frog is super cute

As was this one:

This guy on the left is kind of ugly.


I learned that the Symbolic meaning of a cat in Korea is.....Wait for it. Wait for it. A 70 year old man.

And a butterfly is an 80 year old man.

Poor cats and butterflies, they are so put upon.

These were really beautiful



This wall hanging was ENORMOUS.


Oh you might look at it and think, oh it's not that big. Oh but just you wait, here I am standing in front of it:

The feet are quite a bit larger than my head.

Attack of the birds!

A pipe set:


This guys mustache was awesome


Carrie and I taking a break in the little mini-chairs

Me being a photo-creeper

This thing was amazing. Look how many stories high it is!




And here are some other random, awesome looking things.


My, what nice teeth you have.


After wandering around the museum for a long time, Elaine, Carrie and I headed to the Seoul Station area to get dinner, since Elaine could catch a bus back to her place from there.

We got Naeng Myeon (aka cold noodles. so good) and lazed around a bit because our feet hurt like none other. We saw this cool bicycle statue:


We hung around and chatted for a long time, before heading home after a long day. It was a very nice day.

I went back to the museum a couple weeks later to see the exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum about the 16-1800's. It was very interesting, though of course we couldn't take pictures. My favorite part was definitely the King Vulture of Condor. Mostly because the name reminded me of Lord of the Rings. They also had a lovely razor set from England, which I wish I could have taken a picture. It made me start singing Sweeney Todd.

Well that was my time at the museum, hopefully I didn't bore you with too many pictures! More blog posts to come about funny student quotes and old men literally horse-clicking at me.