Rushing via two big museums in one day

I used a subway app to conduct my first solo ride today to the National Museum of Korea, South Korea’s flagship museum for history and art, and the country’s largest museum with more than 220,000 national artifacts and relics, the museum covers the ancient history of Korea to the pre-Korean War modern era. I took 1-hour guided tour in English then speeded via the building in another 2-hr. The Museum has its own app for audio tour on all the exhibited items. Clearly,  Chinese influences are deeply rooted in Korean culture, but Korea has done a much better job in preserving and promoting the culture. The more Korea promotes the culture, the more the world identifies the culture with Korea instead of China. Official Korean documents were written in Chinese and higher education was conducted in Chinese characters.

Then I walked 2+ miles to the War Memorial of Korea that exhibits and memorializes the military history of Korea. Korea has been invaded about a few times and this is the best place to learn about its troubled history, especially its relationships with its near neighbors. Though it calls itself a war memorial, this is really a huge military history museum with tanks, planes and guns on display. I saw a protest by college students in front of the Memorial.