Day 2 - History!

 

A terrible cup of coffee!

After a leisurely morning starting at 6:00, we found our way down to breakfast.  It was a buffet, and international buffets are kind of interesting.  They had many things we are used to seeing for breakfast, so we enjoyed some of the local flavors.  We also enjoyed the Christmas decorations.

We had breakfast down there.

Even the elevator was decorated for Christmas!

Not even the whole hot food on the buffet!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

View from the room (in the day)

View from the room (continued)
(with the Sungnyemun Gate)

City Hall (the curved one)

I was surprised Pyongyang is only 125 miles away.

We wandered our way to the bus stop, getting a little confused on the way.  Google Maps don’t work in Korea, and other map apps seem to either give only the English, or only the Korean, but not both.  (You really need both since some signs are only in the Korean, we can’t recognize the Korean letters yet, and we really need both to cross-reference.  When we were in Tokyo in 2006, I remember our subway stop looked like a square root sign and a Christmas tree then about 5 more symbols.  So, I just looked for the sign that was “Square Root of the Christmas tree” and found out way home.  We’re not there yet with Korean.

Anyway, we caught the bus and had 3000 Won (about $2.25) in hand.  Both the driver and Bill were a little uncertain, but there was a “box” that seemed like money was supposed to go in, so in it went and the driver seemed to accept that.  Then we began trying to interpret the placard on the bus listing all of the stops and guess which one was ours.  It was sort of a box, and a sign post, with a circle over a hook.

The brothers (one South Korean Army, one North) finding and
embracing each other, with the split modeled in the dome.

We eventually arrived at our stop for the Korean War Museum.  The outside display had lots of planes, tanks, artillery, and helicopters, ranging from the 1950s to modern day.  That seemed strange, but, OK.  This might be the time to warn you…there will be gratuitous pix of planes…many!

A pillar for each country that supported the UN forces.

Ooh!  Tanks!  And more!

Kind of looks like it's puckering for a kiss!

Who doesn't like a gratuitous F4 Fantom?

Yikes!  That's a LOT of repair patches!!

It can't be "M*A*S*H" without this baby!

This looks like it was made with paper mache!

Flag of the UN coalition.

A cool model of a fort.

Now, about everything I know about the Korean War, I learned watching M*A*S*H, so I was fully prepared to hear how much the US did and fun things like that.  Well, fun fact, this museum is about ALL of the wars Korea ever had!!  (Turns out, we know very little about history outside of the US and the West in general)!  It started on the first floor in about the year 200BC.  And they had a LOT of wars between -200 and 1950 when “The Korean War” started.  It was actually very interesting, but it was also overwhelming.  History can be that way regardless, but in this case, it was names we’d never heard of, places we never heard of, and in formats we didn’t recognize, so going from one display to the next, I’d already forgotten some of the players.  I do recall that the Tang Dynasty (China) made alliances and also attacked different combinations of the 3 Kingdoms (one of which was the Silla, another started with a G, and there was another) until about 900AD.  I’m certain this will be useful info in a very specific circumstance one day in the future.  The first floor took almost 2 hours, and only got us to the point where the Japanese started taking over, in about 1910.

Lunch.  A "beef rib sandwich" (hot dog looking thing),
and Garlic Sausage (hot dog on a stick) 
and a Coke Zero.  Except, not really a Coke Zero at all!

The second floor was mostly about the Korean War I expected, but of course started with the bombing of Hiroshima.  It seemed strange to start there, but in a way, it made sense too.  I’ll spare you the history lesson.  We spent about 2 hours trying to hurry through the second floor, taking a snack break mid-way through.

In the end, my take away was the awareness of how war and conquest is a staple throughout history in every corner of the world.  They seemed to average a war about every 10 years—sometimes annually, and sometimes not for 30 or so.  But it was only a matter of time and there would be more.  It also amazed me to see how close to “success” North Korea got in about 6 weeks, having pushed the South Koreans to a corner of the peninsula, and almost off the map, but for the US and the UN (nudged in that direction by the insistence of Harry Truman) stepping in to provide troops and supplies and weapons.  So, it isn’t an exaggeration to say South Korea exists today because of the US.  But, it was also satisfying to see that South Korea participates in many UN actions, seemingly out of gratitude for the support they received.  That part was encouraging.

MiG15

F86 Sabre (I had a model of this when I was about 10!)

As the museum closed, we virtually ran through the third floor, and then out to find our bus.  We wrapped up with dinner and drinks in the lounge up on the 22^nd floor.