The Korean War Memorial and Museum

On Halloween we went three places: The War Memorial, Itaewon, and the Banpo Rainbow Bridge. Because they are such different places, I will write about them separately. The War Memorial was our first stop.

Heading Out, Making Friends

We began our trip, like most so far, in the Songtan metro station. After the twenty minute walk to the station, I needed to use the bathroom. After I finished using the bathroom and was about to wash my hands, a woman asked me if she could interview me. She said she was a sophomore at Yonsei University and was studying English.

For a brief moment I thought about her being an English major the way I do at home, but soon realized that it’s really more like studying Korean or Spanish (or some other language/country/culture) in the U.S. (silly me!) She kept writing things in her phone so I think she was using a translator app for help, but I am not certain because she did not know the word patience (the answer I gave to the question: “what is your weakness?”)

She asked me where I was from, what I liked to do, and other things along those lines. There was another woman (I think her major was journalism) who was there with her. Once the interview was finished and the women collected my email address and phone number, they wanted to take a selfie with me. I took one with them with my phone as well. Meanwhile, Kyle was probably wondering why I was taking so long in the bathroom.

Onto The Metro

After I was done in the bathroom, we jumped on Line 1, went straight to Namyeong Station on the crowded metro station and took Exit 1. Despite having maps, we sure are bad at using them (I should have mentioned that as my weakness instead- I have a pretty bad sense of direction.) This time I think we only took one wrong direction before getting it right.

I think we took a right out of the station, then another right, then a left at some point but I would advise you find directions elsewhere if you are trying to reach the same destination. If you see signs for “wedding hall” or something along those lines follow them, because they point to the memorial.

A Moving Exhibition

I found the museum moving and connected and sympathized to it more than Kyle, likely because I grew up as a military brat. My dad was actually stationed in Korea (at Osan, the base we are currently near) when I was a small child. (Kyle is very interested in planes and artillery, though.) For me, being close to the military base already helps makes me feel like I am at a home away from home. On a side note, my ID card will soon be expiring and I cannot get it renewed so I will soon be feeling fully like a civilian :’(

We first came to a dome structure with statues on top and mosaic art on the inside.

Next, we made our way down some stairs to an area which had some pictures which we believe were demonstrating some of the destruction from the Korean war (it was in Korean.) Not surprisingly, It looked pretty bad.

It looked like there was an area we could go inside but we were unsure what it was and whether or not it would cost money so we headed up to the more iconic area of the outdoors, aka what we had seen pictures of online.

The Outer Exhibit

Next, we walked along an area which had pictures of Koreans serving in the military. We think some photos must have been of special ops groups as they were enduring some really extreme conditions. I did not take photos of the photos but found some similar ones online.

The photos in general were pretty impressive and also showed a great sense of camaraderie in their troops (not unlike other militaries across the world.) We walked further and came to an area which had all kinds of planes and tanks, most of which seemed to come from the United States.

We explored this area for a little bit (which had signs in English as well) and walked over to head inside of the building. On our way in, there were plaques on the walls, (most likely memorials for those who had lost their lives while serving in the Korean military) with a fresh white flower at the bottom of each large plaque.

A Massive Interior Too

We walked into the building and found there were several different ways we could go to explore. (Note: it is free, but they accept donations.) We went forward into a room which had candles lit and then past it to a dark room with little lights on the ceiling.  These were really nice exhibits, but we could not find much in English to learn exactly what they were about.

We have both learned most of the alphabet which just means we can pronounce the words/syllable but do not know enough vocabulary to know what they mean. We hung out in here for a minute and imagined what it was about. Next, we went to an area which had some war-related paintings.

I always enjoy looking at art, and places like this are no exception. We had just seen some war art recently at the Pensacola Naval Air Museum. Nearby was an area with various exhibits which proved to be larger than we thought.

We began in one room and watched a video about the Korean War. The U.S. played a very large role in helping South Korea during the war. We moved through the area and watched several more videos, listened to audio, watched some animations showing various things like positions of troops and their movement, read plaques, and looked at lots of pictures and artifacts.

Worth the Visit

It was really interesting not only to learn more about the Korean War and Korea’s military history but also to learn more about the role of the U.N. and U.S. in Korea. I think there was a little bit more to explore outside of this area, but by this time the museum was closing in 30 minutes and we wanted to do Itaewon before going to the bridge so we walked down over to Itaewon.

I would that recommend future visitors allot several hours for a visit here.

~B~