Museum of Korean War Stuff and Junk

So as this title implies, I made it to The War Memorial of Korea, in Seoul. Truthfully, I didn't take a lot out of it, so that explains why I called it "Museum of Korean War Stuff''.

As for the junk, I figured I would stray off topic and talk about how much my job has improved just this week. So I got a new student in one of my regular classes, and her parents put her in some additional private classes. Luckily, my boss put me on for teaching her, which meant that he would have to relieve me of a few other classes. Somehow he did about the best thing possible. One of her classes is scheduled during my most hated class, which is with middle school kids, so I don't teach that anymore. YES. I was also given Friday mornings off. NO FRIDAY MORNING. And all I have extra is one on one lessons with a student who actually wants to learn. Wow.

Anyway, heres the war museum stuff. Like I said, I didn't really learn a lot from it, so it's mostly just a bunch of pictures. I went two weekends ago now with my friend Daniel who was actually in the military and served in the first Gulf War. By far the best part of the trip to Seoul that weekend was that we ate at both a Mexican and a Thai food restaurant. To me, those are the two best food countries in the world. We also ate at restaurants that did a super good job. Mexican was at 'South of the Border' at a mall, and the Thai was at Thai Orchid in Itaewon. Let me just say that Thai Orchid makes a coconut soup that might as well have come from Thailand. Wow.

So here's the museum anyway. The first thing we saw when approaching was this statue of two guys. Is it just me or does it look like two people making out? It's actually called 'The Statue of Brothers,' so thats a little bit insensitive to two brothers who were separated in North and South Korea. But come on, they are totally making out.

The outside of the museum I found a little bit more interesting than the inside. They had this ridiculous collection of war machinery, I think mostly from the Korea conflict (the one from MASH). They had just so many tanks, airplanes, cannons, and really everything. This is a fountain made from a mine.

This is an artsy shot of the 'Korean War Monument.'

Here's the front facade of the museum. It's surrounded by flags and then a giant set of steps leading to the door. I was also impressed by the giant green cantilevered overhang over the doorway. I forgot some stuff inside of a locker on the way out, and then made it to about the point where I took this picture before I realized it. There were about five minutes until the place closed, so I sprinted all the way up the steps to try to make it in time. I tried the doors and the first two I tried were locked. They had luckily left just one open, and I made it in time.

Here's some of the airplanes they have outside the museum, with Seoul Tower in the background.

Inside they had some impressive murals, this one with some Korean soldiers storming out of a helicopter. I call it "who farted inside the chopper?"

This is a replica of 'Fatman' himself. 'Littleboy was right next to it but it wasn't impressive enough to make it on the website.

So this was a seemingly random face cutout thing, and on a whim had Daniel take my picture in it. It turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of myself ever. I kind of feel like I should have been in the military because of this shot.

The historic section had this neat armor from the various dynasties throughout Korea's history.

Here's the sun setting on the Museum, ahhhh, what a day.

So overall it was a nice visit and definitely worth the three bucks. I was a little bit disappointed because there's barely even a mention of the U.S. and their involvement in the Korea conflict. There's giant section where they have a life-size model of somebody from each country that came to fight in the Korea conflict, and the U.S. didn't get any special treatment. Oh Well.