South Korea Day 12: The War Memorial

A miserable amount of rain fell: enough to make everything wet and cause people to think twice about going outside even if they had a pink polka dotted umbrella that could withstand gusts of wind.  People, aka myself, went looking for things to do indoors instead, and ended up at the Korea War Memorial.

You may remember from the DMZ day that Korea is familiar with war or, more precisely, familiar with other countries fighting over it, not to mention the conflict that ended with the creation of the DMZ and the need for all South Koreans to complete mandatory military service on leaving school.

The War Memorial walked us through the history, both old and more recent, of Korea, with a lot of fascinating information about the Korean War and the Armistice.  Korea was kind enough to provide some information in English too, so I could understand a bit of what I was looking at. 

Australian flag flying along with those of the nations who participated in the Korean War.

I didn't take a lot of pictures.

Inside.

Cars driven by the leaders of South and North Korea.

Outside the main buildings lay an impressive collection of military machines: helicopters, planes of all sizes and antiquities, tanks, and even ships. The rain took a break and we wandered through the relics and had lunch at a little cafe overlooked by the large and very well guarded Ministry of National Defense, just across from the museum.

Back at base our usual busker had been replaced by one much less interesting. It was raining again and all the tourists had holed up in the hotels leaving the market to the locals and a few like us, driven by the need for hotteok.

Empty back alleys.

Found some!