National Museum & Insa-Dong

Day two in Seoul with Brenden's parents, we started at the National Museum. The National Museum actually has branches all over Korea, but most of them are full of historical things pertinent to that particular region. The National Museum in Seoul, however, not only has historical artifacts and re-creations, but also has sections devoted to Korean art, which we really enjoyed. Here are just a few of my favorite things:

I really liked this piece--look at the detail and lovely colors, and how the gold actually glistens.



This is a horse token, which was carried by secret royal inspectors who would travel undercover around Korea to do secret investigations during the Joseon period (1392-1910). The horses on the medal indicate how many horses the inspector is entitled to take from stations around Korea (five horses, as below, was the highest number).


This is a royal box of the late Joseon Dynasty (beginning in 1897), which contained the great seal:


Everything above was in the history section. After the history sections, we hurried into the private collections section (i.e., mostly Korean art donated by private collectors), then onto the Korean art area. My favorites were the celadon (popular in the 12th century) and the white porcelain vases (popular during the 18th and 19th centuries). Unfortunately, the celadon vases didn't look nearly as beautiful in photographs as they did in person, so I only have white porcelain jars to share. This dragon-and-cloud jar is from the 18th century:


And this one is from the 19th century contains ten symbols of longevity:


We didn't get to see everything at the National Museum because we had other things planned for the afternoon. When we emerged from the museum, there were crowds of parents and their children, doing special crafts and activities. The crowd was actually a little overwhelming, and it dawned on us that it was because it was Children's Day, that's why everyone was there (Children's Day was the reason for our 4 day weekend--parents take their children to do special things on this holiday).

After eating a quick lunch in the museum courtyard, we took Doug and Barbara to Insa-dong, our favorite area of Seoul. Unfortunately, due to Children's Day, the streets were the most crowded we'd seen them (including the previous weekend, when we'd been to the festival for Buddha's birthday). We wandered around, and Doug and Barbara bought some gifts for friends and family back home. We went past the Starbucks in Insa-dong, as we'd done many times before, but had never taken a picture of it before. Since Insa-dong is a traditional area, Starbucks decided to forgoe their normal logo up top and instead spelled out "Starbucks" in Korean lettering.