Modern History Museum in Gunsan

Last weekend it was raining, so my boyfriend and I decided to visit the museum of modern history in Gunsan. 

Gunsan is not too far away from Jeonju, it takes less than an hour by car. It is a small city by the sea and the bank of river Geum. It used to be a small fishing village and in the late 19th century the port was opened to ship rice to Japan.

After arriving to Gunsan we first had a small snack in the nearby convenience store (since we were kind of hungry already, but it was still too early for lunch) and then went straight to the Museum of modern history. The museum was rather crowded. Maybe because of the weather. It seems a lot of people like to visit museums on rainy days.

On the first and second floor of the museum you can learn about the history of the city, mostly about the fishing and farming and of course about the city in the time of Japanese-Korean war. There are many old items such as working tools or pottery on display and also different kinds of fishing boats. There is even a huge fishing boat in the middle of the room and you can climb up on it. And in the middle of the lobby there is a nice lighthouse. But the third floor is the most fun.

The whole third floor is turned into old Gunsan from 1930s. There are replicas of old buildings such as different shops, port, farm houses, train station, school etc... and you can walk around, enter the buildings and really feel like you're in the 1930s Gunsan :)

 

One of the first houses on display, and also the most crowded one, was the school. It was really small and it looked so cute. There were a couple of school desks and chairs and by the walls there were desks where you could try out printing ink on a paper. I tried it, but it was harder than it looked, so I kind of failed and didn't take a photo of it.

Then there were several shops that sold liquor, food, pottery, shoes etc. In the liquor store we could smell different types of alcoholic drinks and in the shoe store we were able to try on old type Korean shoes.

The last part of the museum was dedicated to Buddhism. And there was a small workshop where kids could draw pictures and post them on the wall. And we decided to join in lol Of course we were the only adults there drawing pictures, but why not, there was no "children only" sign. We only got to use two different colors of crayons since the kids were using the rest and we didn't want to take them away from them, so here is our masterpiece in two colors. :D

The museum was really fun. There was even a chance to try on old type Korean clothing and take a photo with this cool 1930s background, but there were too many people and we would have to wait for a long time. So we decided to skip that.

After leaving the museum it was time for lunch. My boyfriend found this cool place that's actually an old elementary school that has been turned into a restaurant. It is not that far from the museum, but still kind of in the middle of nowhere, so you need a car to get there. 

When we entered the restaurant (school) the lady told us to go to the third grade - lol We walked down the hallway pass the first and second grade classroom until we took a seat in the third grade one. The third grade classroom is the biggest and there are places to sit on the floor too. Whereas the first and second grade classrooms are a bit smaller with only tables available. Every classroom still has blackboards on the wall, so even though it is really a restaurant, it still looks like a school :)

We ordered a Korean dish called ssambap. Basically you get stew, meat, rice, lots of side dishes (there was a fish too, but mostly vegetables) and different types of greens to use for wrapping: lettuce, kale, sesame leaf, Korean cabbage, chicory and red beet. You place one of the greens in your hand and then add some rice, meat, vegetables and ssamjang sauce. You wrap it all together and eat it ^^ It was delicious.

 

Before leaving the school we were able to try on old type Korean high school uniforms. They look a lot different from the school uniforms kids wear these days. Boys don't wear hats anymore (too bad, those hats look so cute! ^^) and skirts are A LOT shorter now. Anyway, it was fun to try it on and man, my boyfriend looked soooo handsome in that uniform ^^ <3

On the way back we stopped at Mango Six for some of that yummy yogurt flavored soft ice-cream. So in spite of the rainy weather we had a really fun weekend. ^^