Big Day Out!

On Saturday, Leanne and I decided to have day out called ‘LAURAS AND LEANNES BIG DAY OUT!!!’ Oh Yeah! Well, I decided the name but whatever :P Anyways, we started out by going to the independence gate . The park there is really nice and there were some adjummas dancing in the park. Oh adjummas! They do seem to like a dance.

We then went to Seodaemun prison history museum. I didn’t know what to expect when I went there but the place was quite haunting. You can just feel the past there and it wasn’t a nice experience. Don’t get me wrong  I’m glad I went there but when you walk into a room with pictures of the 5,000 people who died there surrounding you, it’s just turns your blood cold. Some of the pictures are of people that were barely teenagers and you can see the pain in their eyes.

Before I start I apologise for any incorrect information on this entry I have only just learnt of the history between these two countries during the last two months. Ok, for people who aren’t familiar with Korean history, Japan took over Korea for around 50 years. They tried to wipe out the Korean language and culture and replace it with the Japanese language. People who rebelled and sometimes innocents were put into this prison and were tortured. This were men, women and by the looks of the some of the pictures also children. Over 5,000 people died here (or after from the result of torture/starvation) during the Japanese rule. Link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule

During the war Japan took woman from China, Korea and other countries and forced them to service Japanese soldiers. These were called comfort woman and after the war when they weren’t needed anymore the Japanese killed most of them. Many who survived are still living so you can imagine how they feel. What’s worse is there has never been a proper apology to these women from Japan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women

So you can imagine the feeling you get from this prison. I got a feeling of sadness and pain but also a feeling of rebellion and that the people sent here were brave and fought for what they believed in, their country.

After the prison we went to Bukchon hanok village. It has the largest collection of privately owned hanok houses in Seoul. Hanok houses are the tradition houses of Korea. On the way back to the station we popped in to a chicken art museum thinking it would be funny….. How wrong we were! I thought we would walk around having a laugh but after we paid for out entry the guy told use a tour guide was waiting for us upstairs. Yes, a chicken museum tour guide! And what’s worse we were the only two people in the whole museum so we couldn’t sneak out!!! I reckon we were in there for about 45minutes listening to information about chicken art. An example of our tour– “this chicken is from France”. So what? We can read!!!!

For dinner we had what I can only describe as the spiciest dish I have ever eaten. After one mouth full my nose and eyes were running. It wasn’t just me but other people looked like they were having a heart attack.