Wherever we may roam: National Museum of Korea and the Children's Museum

I had a wonderful day with my family! I had to go down to Yongsan for a PWOC meeting gearing up for the Faithlift woman’s conference this weekend. Because I would have my afternoon free, I thought I’d have my family come down with me. On the train, on the way down, Nature Girl told her dad, “You drive me crazy!” He was picking on her and she was letting him know… I had to laugh out loud. How could you not when it was the first time you had ever heard that come out of your child’s mouth?

I went to PWOC (about 30 minutes late) and was so excited to see 3 ladies from Dongducheon there! I hadn’t known or expected them to travel down there (2 hours) with each of them toting a child under 2! Way to go, ladies! It was so nice to visit with them!

Since we are starting a chapter of PWOC up in Area 1, I was going to get to meet the PWOC President of the Asia Region. What a gem of a lady! I am looking forward to getting to know her better! We will be going up to Camp Casey tomorrow with a few other guests after the Leadership Brunch so they can see the facilities and be able to guide me in how best to proceed.

My husband grabbed the girls after PWOC and took them to the hotel to grab lunch while I was in a quick meeting. The weather had warmed up quite a bit by then (55’) and they were sitting outside enjoying pizza when I found them. We threw some crumbs trying to coax some birds over. We only had a few brave ones swoop by and grab a crumb and fly off. The girls enjoyed watching them, nonetheless.

Signing "I love you"

We decided to go to the Children’s Museum located in the Museum of Korea. The visit was free for both the basic entrance and the Children’s Museum. What a treat it was! The Children’s Museum only allows groups to go through every 1 ½ hours, so we had about 30 minutes to spend in the Museum of Korea. We saw stone and brass tools, ancient pottery, miniature displays of traditional hut made of wood and straw, and the elaborate wood work that was used in the Korean temples.

When we walked into the Children’s Museum, the first thing we saw was a life-size wooden and straw hut like the ones we had just been looking at in the Main Museum! We got to walk into the hut, touch replicas of the stone and wooden tools that were used during that time period, and see the pottery that the people would have used. When we walked out of the hut, they had a place where the kids could process raw rice. Rice has a sheath over it and that must be removed before it is eaten. They had a flat stone and a smaller stone that was used to roll the rice between to remove the sheath. They also had a mortar and pestle to accomplish the same job. The Nature girl thought it was the neatest thing… every time we turned around, she had wandered back to that display to clean the rice some more. What fun she had with that!!!

The girls could use wooden puzzle-like pieces to build model houses and the parts of the temple building. There were two costumes for the girls to dress up in, a replica of broken pottery to reassemble (it was magnetic to make it easier on the kids), brass rubbings, Korean traditional printing, musical instruments to play, a room full of puzzles and more. It was a great way to spend the day! Even my husband, who is a major homebody, enjoyed himself.

The walk back to post was scenic even though the trees were still bare. The girls and I decided that we will go back this summer to enjoy the beautiful grounds around the Museum.

The view looking over toward the Family Park next to the museum

Beautiful flowers outside the museum

Nature Girl spreading her wings

From the museum we went to the Navy Club for dinner. The girls enjoyed their chicken strips, my husband liked his omelet and I enjoyed my steak… yum! The décor was fun for the girls to see, with all of the pirates, shells, mermaids and sea life, it was very colorful.