I woke up around 7.30am, I was a Seoul man, well for a day and a half. I had a shower and dressed with the jumper I'd ended up sleeping in as it was cold. I still had a little bit of food left so I ate it and went out with the plan to see the war memorial then the national museum and walk through a park to the palace that had UNESCO listing and a guided tour at 2.30. I got on the subway and got off near the memorial and arrived there at 9.30 where they had some monuments which I thought might be a bit of nothing as they often are when you have lots on a map but it wasn't bad and had a description plaque. This was called 2 brothers, about brothers who had met on the battlefield fighting for opposite sides although it could be made up, the next was about wanting Reunification and then I went into the museum building. They had a monument inside and then the exhibition which went through the war and had some really good videos translated to several languages and some quite good effects. The war story was that North Korea were prepared and invaded and almost took the whole of South Korea but the UN agreed to fight and the US committed most troops and pushed back the north and were winning but then China added troops and the north pushed back and it became a bit of a slugging match like a Rocky fight with each taking it in turns to gain ground and lose ground. There were lots of ceasefires and eventually peace was kind of agreed although this is still technically a ceasefire. It was moving and detailed and I liked that it was the UN who had fought the war although South Korea wasn't completely happy as it meant they couldn't attend to negotiate the peace. I walked around the other areas and they had a few other exhibitions including the military history of Korea and other parts added more detail to the recent war. They had weapons and vehicles inside and more vehicles, planes and even a small ship outside. By the time I finished it was gone midday much later than I expected. There was no door to the north so I went round the south going past the last monuments and then I headed north to the park that I could see was a hill with a tower on top. I was hungry so I got a sandwich on the way and then had to take a longer route as the road I wanted went through a tunnel. I climbed up a path to the top of the hill and there was a wall. I'd read about fortress defences in the war museum and walked along it which was nice as the sun was out and I put my jumper away. The walk along the top came to a tower which cost to go up but there were pretty good views from the viewing platforms. I was in a bit of a rush as it was 1.30 so I headed down the hill pretty quickly. At the bottom there was a museum so I decided to visit and take the subway and it was about An Jun... who had assassinated the man in charge during the Japanese occupation in 1910 and then been executed. It added a few more bits of information about Korea. I left and rushed down the last of the hill to the subway and then on the other side rushed to Changdeokgung palace. I got there a few minutes before 2.30 but the ticket queue was quite long so by the time I was at the front I was a few minutes late but still I could probably find the tour group. I asked about the tour and was given the brochure and told that the English tours were at 10 15 and 1.15 so the website was wrong. I grabbed a cake type thing from a food stand for 1000 and it wasn't worth it. I wasn't sure what to do but there were a load of museums on the map not too far away so I headed in that direction but the first museum was not really a museum. The next place was historical but was a university with restricted access. After that the places were small museums with art and crafts and charging quite high rates. It seemed this was a traditional style village area where lots of tourists went so the tourist industry was happy to oblige with ways for them to spend their money. There was a free education museum but it was all in Chinese and the MMCA art museum was 4k. I carried on to a big park with a museum in which was the folk museum and was free although Gyeongbokgung palace next to it was not. The folk museum was ok and added more flesh to the history of Korea from a slightly different angle. I had a look at the Children's museum but it was sold out and I couldn't visit anyway. It was gone 4pm and I headed to the King Sejong museum where I'd read I could learn about the Korean language and maybe learn some of it. The letters everywhere look a bit like a comic book version of Chinese but apparently they were invented by the King close to 600 years ago and are easy to use. On the way I passed an art museum that turned out to be the MMCA and it had free entry after 6pm on Wednesday and Saturday. It was Saturday so I decided to come back. There was a central pavement through the middle of the road where the museum was and there was some kind of procession going on that I couldn't work out. I went into the museum and wet around learning about the other things King Sejong had done like gave the first referendum. Then they had a section on a naval general who had defeated the Japanese and when I left it was past 5.30 but I hadn't learnt their language. I went to the nearby contemporary history museum and went around that which included Koreas growth from a really poor Country after the war into what it is now and it seemed they had some planning to thank for it a bit like Singapore did. It was gone 6 so I went to the MMCA, getting a sushi roll on the way and then went round but also used their wifi to call my brother and make some plans for Japan. The art was ok and was a lot like modern art in most modern art museums with some crap stuff, some thought provoking things and some quite good exhibits but I was done around 7.30 so I headed east in the direction of the hostel with a few museums and a park to see on the way. I checked the map again and saw a temple so I diverted there and it had loads of colourful bunting in front of it which was really special. Unfortunately the temple and the nearby memorial hall was shut and the museums didn't look like they were museums as well. The park was shut so I went back to the hostel and got a pot noodle on the way. I used the computer there to finally update my blog while Mrs Jo watched some TV. I read a bit and a new person came to share the room which delayed me before I could go to sleep.
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