1 More Korea Post

I know I said that I would be writing about my awesome experience at the live cooking show Nanta in the next post, but I lied. Deal with it. The world is full of lies! You live in a prison of my lies. Speaking of prisons...

 Looks like Shawshank right? It isn't far off. There was a prison museum listed on the tourist map. I figured "prisons are fun, I should visit a museum about them."

 The prison was used to keep Korean political dissenters against the occupying Japanese. Japan occupied Korea for a long long time. 

 The first building housed the interrogation methods. this was a narrow box with a door that didn't allow you to sit or stand in it. They would stash people here and wait for them to talk. There was also a room where they would shove bamboo chutes under peoples nails and other rooms where they would just burn them and stuff. 

 A view of the grounds. It is interesting how at the exact edge of the grounds the big apartment buildings climb up. 

 Korean flag on one of the housing blocks. 

 The warden would carry a sword around to show that he was a boss. 

 This room was an isolation room. Essentially it was solitary confinement. 

 A view of the doors to solitary confinement. 

 This guy had been here so long that he was petrified and always holding the same position. 

 Spooky-ooky.

 I don't think this place is officially haunted, but I would believe it if it were. The wind had picked up and was making a bunch howling noises. 

 Evidently a few years ago they immortalized people who had been prisoners here by making statues of the bottoms of their feet. To me it is both weird and icky. I hate feet. They are nasty and should not be viewed ever. Blech. 

 I love me some Engrish. This one is my favorite. I don't really remember World War ? per se, but it seems to have made an impression on the Koreans. 

 Looking at the cell blocks from the powerhouse. 

 This thing reminded me of the laser cannon on the Death Star. I can't be entirely sure that it wasn't the laser cannon. It seems like if you were going to make a world destroying laser cannon, you would do it with slave labor. 

 What you are seeing is a tunnel that runs up to the execution house. They used this to get the bodies out without anyone seeing. Spooky-ooky.

 The last stop on the hall of prison nightmares is the standing cells. Sometimes when you don't want to keep your prisoners in a place with a roof, you can just put them in a fan-shaped outdoor prison so one guy can guard all of them. 

 Another view of the fan-prison.

Last view of the fan prison.

One awesome thing that I forgot to add in my post about going to the DMZ was the awesome waiver that they have you sign. Your souvenir for visiting the DMZ is that they let you keep the waiver. If you have ever wondered what it feels like to sign your life away, it isn't that bad. Here is the context of the letter:

"The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action...my signature constitutes acceptance of the terms of these instructions in their behalf and confirm not to demand compensation for the damage of body and property."

Fun right? 

Oops.

Turns out that time flies when you aren't paying attention. I have been fixated on the Jazz making the playoffs and forgot to update in almost a week. Sue me (please don't). The last note I left on was patriotic and kind of a downer. Time for a switchup. 

 The subway headed to the main palace in Seoul was all fancylike, so I took a picture. 

 The buildings behind the main courtyard.

 Looking toward the Blue House (Korea's version of the White House).

 Looking back at the Imperial Guard and the entrance.

 Ornately painted wood on the gate. 

 The guy in red is the boss. Jeferojo.

 This guy was also important somehow. 

 The courtyard leading into the main palace grounds.

 A really neat sculpture set on the corner of one of the gatehouses. It has a bunch of animals in a line. 

 Big courtyard surrounding the throneroom-type place. They didn't have a throne because people sit on the ground in this hemisphere. 

 The entire courtyard is paved with flagstones which are rough cut to keep glare at a minimum. 

 More carved animals on the banisters.

 I lied about the throne. They totally have one. 

 It doesn't look comfortable, but it is better than the floor. 

 I took a picture of some people taking a picture. This is a big reception hall up on stilts. 

 The king's living spaces.

 I don't really remember what this is a picture of, but here it is.

 The king's breakfast spread.

 It had started to rain at this point, so miraculously everyone had ponchos. 

 The mountains across the grounds.

 The palace is always shown with this mountain (hill?) in the background.

 A 5-tiered pagoda. 

 A bridge to another little pagoda. It was somewhere around here that the former queen was assassinated by the Japanese near the end of the rule of the royalty. 

 A whole building area was laid out with different types of pots. The different styles are indicative of different parts of Korea. They store a lot of things in earthenware pots (like kimchi). It was really rainy. 

 Lots of pots. Rhymed...unintentional. 

 A look across at the pagoda.

Interestingly, the palace buildings had heated floors. They would have little fires under the clay stones with the wood on top of the floors. The head would make the clay warm which would head the wood. Smart right? The problem was that it would create smoke. To alleviate this, they would channel it through to these chimneys set of a ways from the main buildings. They were decorated with a different style brick so you knew what was what. 

 They were announcing that there would be a changing of the guard coming. I looked at these guys getting ready, but in the end there was too much rain so they didn't change the guard. 

 He spotted me!

 I also took a trip down to the National Museum. I don't know what I was looking for, but I went. 

 It was still really rainy, but the grounds would be really nice if it weren't. 

Sometimes I think about the amount of history these artifacts have seen. I mean you think about it and they have been kicking around for hundreds of years. What would they say if they could talk?

 This shell has seen some terrible things...you can tell. 

The Korean equivalent of the samurai. Significantly less cool. Probably why Japan occupied them for so long. 

I was planning to spend more time at the museum, but I found it kind of boring after we got up to the age of enlightenment for the Koreans. Lots of calligraphy and paintings of kings and whatnot. I was pretty much done with the culturally significant things by the second floor. I breezed through the exhibits ad finally headed back to the hostel to get some peace and quiet during the end of the storm that was blowing through. That night I went to Nanta...but I will tell you about that next time.