A Weekend in Seoul

We spent our first weekend in Seoul exploring a couple different areas.  On Saturday we tested out the subway system for the first time and have found it the easiest way to get around the city by far, thanks to our subway map in English.  After a shopping trip at Emart (Korean form of Wal-Mart) we met up with some other teachers from our school at a beautiful park on Han River.  Although it was bitterly cold with the wind, it was a gorgeous place by the water with all kinds of walking/biking paths, picnic and BBQ areas and much more.  We even saw the stadium that was built for the 1988 Olympics from across the river.  For dinner we were taken to the Meat King, an all you can eat meat buffet, a Korean BBQ restaurant.  We were able to choose whatever meat we wanted and BBQ it at our table. 

Feeling confident in our subway skills we ventured even further on Sunday going to The War Memorial of Korea in Yongsan, Seoul.  The memorial and museum were amazing.  In the US you are taught very little about the Korean war and even then only from the perspective of the Americans helping the South Koreans.  We learned so much from this museum.  We had a tour from a Korean man that lived in a refugee camp as a teenager during the war.  The entire country was completely torn apart during the first year of the war.  Thousands were displaced from their homes, forced to live in refugee camps during brutal winters with little food.  In North Korea people were forced from their homes and forced to accuse their friends and neighbors of being anti-communist.  Those that were caught were then killed either immediately or publicly.  North Koreans were forced to live through the war in their attics or basements to avoid being caught and killed by the communist soldiers.  Twenty-one UN countries helped the South Koreans fight through the brutal first year and the two years of stalemate that followed.  When the war finally ended in 1953 thousands of families were separated by the Demarcation Zone, forcing some family members to live in North Korea while others of the same family were in South Korea.  Many of these families are still separated today, including the man that gave us a tour of the museum.  Once the war was over both countries needed to rebuild.  As our tour guide said, when they rebuilt they had to do so on top of the bodies of the 200,000 soldiers and numerous citizens that lost their lives.  South Korea still hopes for the day that Korea can become unified once again.  They feel very grateful and indebted to the twenty-one countries that helped them during the war.  It is a memorial not only for Korean soldiers, but for all of the soldiers that fought the war with them. 

 The crack through the memorial represents the disunity between North and South Korea, something that South Korea hopes will one day be unified again.

 Every soldier from every country that lost their life fighting in the Korean war has been inscribed on a wall outside the museum

 Thousands of dog tags from soldiers are assembled into a tear drop representing South Korea's sadness of the split between the north and south

The flags of the other 21 nations that helped fight the war with South Korea surrounded by the UN and South Korean flags on the ends