National Museum of Korea

So on... Saturday (the real Saturday), my family plus my cousin's mom and grandparents went to the National Museum of Korea. It was actually really cool. 

The interior of the museum. 

There's no entrance fee to the museum, which is awesome. Getting an audio player thing is less than $3, which is also amazing. Even though it was a weekend, it wasn't busy at all. There was lots to see. I posted a few of my favorite pics below. Enjoy :)

I want these earrings. Look how intricate they are. No idea when they were made, but yeah. So pretty (and heavy)!

A shell mask. Cool huh? Made by some of the earliest settlements on the Korean peninsula. 

Part of the 한글 or "Korean Language" exhibit. Showing the 11,000+ character combinations that you can use in Korean. Lucky for Koreans, most of the combos don't even exist. Korean is actually pretty easy to learn; really systematic. The grammar is very different from English and the pronunciation is difficult, but reading is easy peasy. 

I was reaaally excited to see the celadon-ware. This was one of my favorites. A teapot. Check out the intricate design and the beautiful green color. They don't know how to make that color anymore =\ Lost over time. 

I think this was a bronze incense burner. 

A 10-story pagoda. Ridiculous, yeah? That's my dad looking up at it. SO TALL. 

These are my parents :) We're on the 3rd story of the museum. 

Yay end!

Saturday Pt. 2

So then we took the subway to 시청, which is around the City Hall area of Downtown Seoul. There's a palace there. We didn't go inside, but we took pictures! Woo hoo!

And then we started walking around and saw this gorgeous mural of flowers. 

And then, being the awesomely fit people that we are, we decided to walk from 시청 to 명동, which is this shopping district in Seoul. And along the way, we saw this building that was being renovated, and the walls covering it from the main street had this crazy collage/mural. 

The mural actually depicts some of the famous sights in Seoul. In the picture above, you can see City Hall on the left and Namsan Tower in the center. The blue ribbon thing in the middle is the Han River that cuts through Seoul. 

Then we finally made it to 명동.  The picture below doesn't show it, but it was SO CROWDED because it was White Day. Oh, for those of you who don't know what White Day is, it's a holiday where the guy gets the girl chocolate (or other gifts).  In Korea, Valentine's Day girls get the guys gifts. And then a month later, on 4/14, it's Black Day, where single people eat black noodles because they're single. Hahahah. Koreans are crazy. 

Jacob, Joanna and I went to this really cute cafe called O' Sulloc. They're super famous for their green tea. Yum yum. I had floral green tea and it came in the cutest set. 

We also got green tea 빙수, which is basically shaved ice with green tea, ice cream, red beans, dduk, and this one also had macadamia nuts and chocolate. SO AMAZING. Drool. I want some. 

Eventually, Christine joined us (but Jacob left after a bit) and we walked around 명동 for HOURS. Eventually we settled in another cute cafe and had dinner/tea and talked. Woo hoo! Then we realized it was super late and we ran home. Hahaha. Good times :)

the end. will update more on other stuff soon :) Be sure to check out Facebook for all my other pictures!