Adventure Time in Korea: Trick Eye Museum and Love Museum

One weekend the crew and I decided we wanted to go to Everland. Everland is an amusement park in Korea and during Halloween time they have a zombie exhibit and we really wanted to go. But because we are all bad at time management and didn't plan things through properly... we never made it to Everland.

We were in Hongdae for Halloween weekend (post about that later), so we decided to check out the Trick Eye Museum that we had passed by a few times (also at any and all hostels, there are tons of flyers). So, after a little bit of wandering (and getting lost a little bit). We found it, the infamous Trick Eye Museum.

Actually, the Trick Eye Museum, Love Museum, and Ice Museum are all connected. On the ground floor, you walk straight into the Love Museum. You pay 5 or 7 dollars for something you would never ever expect from Korea. Korea is a decently conservative country, but when they decide to make something sexual... they go all out. We were all shocked and surprised when we first entered the museum.

Cassie giving birth to me

Anyways, first stop... the Love Museum. This museum is filled with great photo ops. By great, I mean disturbingly hilarious photo ops. The whole museum is dedicated to sticking your face on top of sex scenes and dirty scenes. You just move from one picture to the next. We actually saw a lot of couples taking pictures there and giggling. Everyone was giggling as they take the pictures. To be honest.... it did feel a little uncomfortable being surrounded by people and taking a picture on a giant squirting penis. But if you are into that, this museum is for you. We had fun, but I didn't show anyone the pictures from this museum... because well.... sorry Grandma.

Fee-fi-fo-fum

The Death of Janelle

When you walk out of the Love Museum, you have the option to leave or go down the stairs. If you go down stairs you go to the Trick Eye Museum. You buy a ticket outside, it's some price that I don't remember and you get a free ticket into the ice museum. The Trick Eye Museum is solely dedicated to taking pictures that are meant to trick the eye. There are instructions for every picture zone. There are written instructions but I don't remember if they were in English as well. But there are photo examples, so we just tried to copy the example photos. There are painted marks on the floor that tell you where to stand to take the picture. If there are lots of people there, then you may have to wait to take pictures at the places that you want. But it was decently empty when we went on a Saturday afternoon. There are tons of fun photo opportunities. I definitely recommend going as at least a group of three or more. Because you will need to switch out taking the pictures and a lot of the photo ops are for two or more people. My friends counted and I posted 22 photos from the Trick Eye Museum on to my instragram.

That Igloo Life

When you leave the Trick Eye Museum, there is a Carnival thing on the side. There are games to play and prizes to win. We went in for two seconds, but after the Trick Eye Museum, it wasn't that fun. But around the corner, there is a giant freezer door. You show the lady your ticket and walk into the coldest room known to man. There are lots of ice sculptures and a big ice slide. (This ice slide is decently slim, so if you have big hips... you may not fit. None of wanted to test it out because we were too frightened of being "that" person that got their butt stuck on the slide.) There are more photo ops in here. However, I will say it's superrrr cold and we were not dressed appropriately for this, so we were in and out pretty quickly. But it was pretty fun for a free side museum.

All in all, this was a really fun place to visit. I highly recommend going. We had a lot of giggles and fun. If you like taking pictures, this is a great place. It's not too expensive and there is a lot to look and do between the 3 museums.

Adventure Time Korea: Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul

Accidental shot from my selfie stick

Just because you are living in Korea and even in Seoul, doesn't mean you shouldn't take the time to do the touristy things. I think a lot of the time people want to be distinguished as a local rather than a tourist. But.... there is nothing wrong with being a tourist. It's fun to see things and do the tourist thing every once and awhile. It's great being a local and knowing the best dives and having the ahjumma at the kimbap restaurant know your favorite roll. However, it's also fun trying new things and going to the popular places that the tourists are flocking too.

This brings me to one of our many tourist weekends in Seoul. This weekend's focus was the Bukchon Hanok Village, which is a small area filled with Korean traditional houses. If you take the subway line 3 and get off at Anguk Station, you walk right into the village. It does take some walking but you can follow the crowds of people or just wonder around until you find something. There is a lot of walking with this and many hills to go up and down but these are well worth a look. You can roam up and down the streets looking at traditional houses. There are shops along the way and if you would like you can even rent a hanbok (Korean traditional clothing) to wear as you walk around. Great for pictures and the experience. When you walk up to the top you get some great views of Seoul.

There are a lot of museums in the area. One of the best is the Traditional House Museum. It gives you the opportunity to walk through a traditional house and yard. You can read the history and use of each room. It was really interesting to look through and had a beautiful garden. I couldn't tell you how to get here though... we literally happened upon it while we were exploring the houses. (You are going to read that a lot in this post.... actually in this blog). You can't actually walk through the rooms in the house. But you can look into the windows and doors like a peeper. The museum is free. You can walk right in and start exploring. (Pro Tip: It's also the only free bathroom in the area, so you get a free museum trip and a free bathroom. Complete score!)

Must have shot of our coffee

When we came down from the Village, we needed coffee because well we always need coffee. There is a road with tons of restaurants and coffee shops. I'm not going to lie, most of the places in the area are overpriced because it is for tourists. The word bougie went through my head when we passed by a lot of the shops. But we did end up finding this really cool coffee shop. It was up a steep stairway and the name is definitely what drew us in. The shop was great with tons of paraphernalia and cool artifacts around the shop. The guy behind this counter was super nice and his English was great. It is mainly coffee and juices, we were actually hoping for smoothies, but the coffee was not a disappointment.It was a great break from the heat because we were sweating like pigs.

We did it! Yeah!

I don't know if I should be in here

After our coffee break (read air conditioning break because summer in Korea is death), we went on with the exploring. Once again.... this is one of those things where we just kept walking and happened upon a mountain. We decided it was a must to climb up it. Samcheong Mountain was the name and we were determined to see what was at the top. There were a million trillion bijillion stairs. I love exercising.... however I was dying up these stairs. We had to take so many breaks (embarassing side story, I sweat from my knees pretty bad.... I know it's weird. Anyways I was wearing red jeans that day and it looked like my knees were faucets leaking water. My friends haven't let my knee sweat go to this day). I wanted to give up a lot but it was well worth the climb because the top was amazing. We ended up on a wall with cubbies (sniper holes that we don't know if we were supposed to climb in... it didn't say not to go in.... please don't deport me) to climb in and views of Seoul that were amazing. Apparently if you keep going you need your ID or military clearance... I don't know... We stopped because we had left one friend behind because she was scared of heights and crying on the wall.

Once we came back down, you would think we were done. But no we kept walking and found the Korean Folk Museum (once again, happened upon... it's a pattern). This is also a free museum you can walk through. There are restaurants and lots of other museums in the area. There are some beautiful temples and more historical things to look at. There is a kids zone with fun crafts to do. You can see men and women walking around in traditional clothing. We had fun walking through it and taking pictures and reading the signs (all of these were in Korean and English). There were some statues of the Chinese zodiacs that you can take your picture with, so of course we did that.

After walking through the Folk Museum, we were officially done. Our feet hurt, we needed a shower, and we stank.... like super stinky foreigners walking around. We decided it was time to head back. But if you want to keep going, there is a lot more to see. You don't have to know the way or use your phone to find anything. We only knew the first stop and from there we were constantly "lost". We did lots of fun things and all of this was just happened upon while walking around. Don't forget to be complete tourists and take lots of pictures for the gram. And definitely don't forget your selfie stick, you'll need it and you won't be a proper tourist without it.