We were determined to make the most out of our last day of sightseeing in Seoul. As always, we were up and running by 8:30 am. After a very American (ie artery-clogging) breakfast at the Green Room buffet, we got a taxi and went to the National Folk Museum (not to be confused with the National Museum of Korea). The Folk Museum children's museum turned out to be really fun.
It is situated on the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung. The whole museum, including the kids' section, was free. While walking the grounds on the way to the museum, we found lots of these curious statues. I learned later they are Jang-seung, traditional Korean totems which were placed at the entrance to villages to ward off evil spirits and also to set the boundaries for different villages. In the past people and families prayed to them to bring good fortune to their town, friends and village.
These were tombs placed on famous people’s graves.
Some of the outside exhibits depicted life not in Ancient Korea, but the conditions people lived in just 50-60 years ago. There was a replica of a barbershop, restaurant, movie theater.
Do you recognize these classics?:)
Katya, our fashionista, decided to try on a new pair of shoes.
Museum workers were waiting outside the kids’ museum to show us how to play some of the traditional Korean games.
Using a metal stick with a “hook”, you try to keep your metal hula-hoop running—that’s my way of explaining it.
It is harder than it looks.
Inside, we found a whole bunch of hands-on activities for kids all based on a story about a princess Shimcheong who was once blind. Then she was reincarnated through a lotus flower.
Mark playing in the underwater kingdom.
And of course—dress up time. Our kids love to dress up:) And Alex couldn’t be happier playing with that drum.
We spent at least 20 minutes at this drawing station. Maybe because the kids hadn’t really colored for almost a week, but they really enjoyed this. If anyone a year ago (before Kindergarten) would tell me that Alex would love to color and draw, I would laugh. If drawing and crafts come naturally to Katya, Alex had to learn to like that. He does a fantastic job now. The kids left the pictures they drew of the princess and lotus on the wall to be displayed:)
There was much more in store upstairs. Musical instruments, more crafts, more traditional Korean games, more dress ups. This xylophone was Katya’s favorite.
This was near the traditional hat exhibit. Hilarious:)!
After a little over an hour, we decided to check out the rest of the Folk Museum. The kids didn’t want to leave… because we were on a schedule to get to the next place, we only took a couple of pictures outside….
…and these Chinese ladies took a couple more pictures of Katya:) I could definitely tell they were not Korean or Japanese.
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