Visit to the museum

Whew! It's done! We did our Korean Language test today, and I'm pretty sure all we Canadians got our passing credit (yay us!).  It's been a busy week of touring and studying, so I haven't been able to update as much as I would have liked to.

Anyway, last week, our new Australian friends, Alex and Guillaume, brought us along with them to the National Museum of Korea.  The place was great.  I learned a lot of cool things about Korean history and culture, saw some pretty trinkets from the past, and best of all, it was free admission (excluding the special exhibits).  We even arrived just in time for the english guided tour.  I don't think I would have learned as much if we wandered off on our own.  I'm the type of person who goes straight to what ever is big and shiny, and I only skim over captions without fully understanding what it is I am looking at.  We definitely lucked out.

I took a lot of pictures at the museum, but I've only posted a few of the things that I particularly liked.

Jewelry/accessories:

Jade on necklaces.

When I said I like big and shiny things, I wasn't kidding.  This display of a king/shaman's solid gold crown, long earrings, and belt definitely caught my eye.

These gold earrings look heavy because of their size, but apparently they are very light in weight.  I want some.

Hair pin! So beautifully detailed.  I also want.

Pretty knife cases. Women carried around knives to protect themselves.  

Gold gold gold.

Sculptures/pottery/art:

Ancient Koreans believed that birds guided the souls of the dead to heaven, so they often buried their dead with bird bones, feathers, and bird-shaped pottery.  

This is one of my favourites! The Baekje Incense Burner is absolutely beautiful.  Birds, animals, plants, and human figures are carved in detail around the burner, which is divided three sections that sit on the twisted-dragon pedestal. I particularly like the way the burner supposedly symbolizes the harmony of different things.  It was found at a Buddhist temple, but according to the tour guide, it also represents a lot of Taoist values.  See, harmony.

Small sculptures people made.  A lot of them show the way the ancient Korean people lived.  I.e. the way they ate, the way they gave birth, the way they play, etc... This particular one was entitled "love".  Hah.

Buddhist Art/Sculptures:

This display showed the differences and progression of the sculptures of Buddhas from different countries, including China, Japan, Korean, and India.  It's really interesting how each ethnic group projected their own image/features onto their representation of Buddhas.  No belly rub for Korea's Buddha. 

Buddhist Guardians.  

Sculpture of a Buddha.  He does have particularly Korean features, doesn't he?  Not the jolly fat Buddha I'm used to.

Pensive Buddha

Decked-out Buddha

Buddha Kaycee...Nah, it's just me guys! I know, hard to tell with the resemblance.

Donations from other countries:

I liked this for some reason.  It reminded me of a greek/roman sculpture, but with Asian facial features. Cool.

Love the expression of the figure on this incense burner.

Mask. Scared me a bit.

Donated by India.  India's representation of females in their sculptures was a lot more sensual than in the Chinese, Japanese, or Korean sculptures.

The context of the sculptures donated by India were also a little bit more riskee.

Architecture:

A 10-story pagoda made of marble. 

This was so COOL. Apparently, when they made houses (such as the one in the picture below) and temples. they would not use any nails at all.  Instead, the parts of the structure would interlock with one another to hold together, which means they had some talented people working on these houses and measuring out those interlocking pieces!  

Because of the way these structures were made, they were able to be taken apart quite easily, and then reassembled.  Often times, when they knew a flood or something would be coming, they would actually move whole temples and other important buildings over to a safer location.  Now that is awesome.

This model house of a Korean scholar's home was made using the interlocking wooden joint method. 

Okay, that's it for me.  I am pooped.  Just practiced the forms for my Tae kwon doe test tomorrow (wish me luck!) and I'm absolutely exhausted.  Sorry for the lazy post..but at least there were pictures:)

I went shopping again today, lots to show and lots to say about that. But for now, later!