Korea's only maritime museum is located here in Busan on Yeong-do, an island, and just opened in July. Needless to say, they've been super busy with people wanting to check out the new museum in town. We should know--we tried to go last weekend two hours after they opened, saw the line of cars wrapped around the block waiting on parking, and decided to come back this weekend. So this morning we arrived right when they opened and got busy exploring. It was a neat place with interesting stuff to look at and plenty of room for C & P to run around.
The museum and the park surrounding it occupy nearly 500,000 square
feet on the water of the harbor. There are eight permanent exhibitions, a children’s
museum, a rooftop observation deck, a maritime library, a
walk-through aquarium, a 4D theater, an auditorium, and a variety of
restaurants and cafes. We did not stop to see the library or the restaurants (time constraints with two hungry little ones), and the 4D theater and auditorium didn't have anything going on at the time. Oh, and the best part? This museum has free admission! How awesome is that?!
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| The shape of the museum is not your normal square....very visually interesting. |
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| As we were looking at the fish, stingrays, and shark, we noticed there was a diver in there swimming around too. The boys weren't too sure what to do when he waved at them. |
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| I don't know if I've ever seen a yellow stingray before. Very pretty! |
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| P was on his tippy toes trying to get as close as he could, and look at C leaning over with his face basically up against the window. They just love this kind of stuff! |
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| T took a picture of us through the water from the other side. |
They have a little water area where you can pick up shells, little fish (if you can catch them!), and starfish.
You can drive little motorized boats in this water.
T was showing the boys how to use the tiller to steer the rudder on the boat. If you watch the screen in front of the boat (which they didn't...they both wanted to be in charge of the tiller--imagine that!), you can steer it through the water around obstacles.
And we're off! It's a good thing the museum wasn't too packed at this point, because the boys needed some room to run every now and then.
The Joseon Missional Ship was selected as the representative ship of
traditional Korean ships and a replica half the size of the original was
produced for the exhibition.
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| Connar's reaction to the skull: "Dat's gwoss!" |
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| "Hwo?" (Hello) |
The rooftop observation deck was pretty cool too.
The rooftop deck also had miniature replicas of lighthouses around the country.
This photo op was hilarious!
There was a small play area outside the museum:
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| This was so funny to watch. The kids were trying to outweigh the man, so more and more kids were piling on. I think there were two more on here by the time it was all done. They were all just giggling away! |
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| I guess he needed to take a break from walking around. :) |
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| Such a boy... He needed a minute to stop and play with his car. :) |
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| He is not throwing a fit here, although it does look like it. He's actually trying to look between the cracks in the wood. :) |
While waiting on our turn to get into the Children's Museum part of this huge museum, Talton took Parker walking around. I looked over to find them surrounded by a group of girls. :)
The Children's Museum...
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| So C sat down with all the Korean kids while this lady was giving a presentation. This is what he did after about 20 seconds of listening to her speak Korean and the kids respond in unison in Korean... |
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| He stood up and looked around like, "I'm not sure what's going on here." It was hilarious, because he just walked off to find something by himself. |
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| I think C sees all the other kids posing for pictures with peace signs, so this is his version. Ha! |
Our drive home... :) These boys make my world go round. They were in serious needs of lunch and naps but managed a few smiles.
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| And he's out! |
Found these gems at the grocery store today! They have "EXPORT" stamped on them, so because T was not sure if this was a one time deal that the store would have them or not, he grabbed 4! That's his football food. :)
