Here we are having tea at the owl museum. Run by Mrs. Bae, proclaimed in her English hand-out as "crazy lady for owl," the museum houses her collection of 2,500 owl-related items "regarded as family treasure #1 at the time of marriage and house-moving." Admission included a hot drink and Jamie drew some owl pictures and gave one to Mrs. Bae for her collection. This neighbourhood also has a chicken museum (bottom left), but we save that for another day.
Look - it's ToyKino museum. Here you may find 200,000 character figures, mainly from the last 15 years (we felt quite old - our childhood was off the radar). There was, however, some CanCon with Don Cherry and Wayne Gretzky dolls (Cancon at the Owl museum was supplied by Mrs. Bae proudly showing us her photo album containing a snap of a young shirtless Canadian lad with a giant owl tattoo on his back). I also made it into the toy collection in my incarnation as Dr. Aki Ross from Final Fantasy. Top left you can see a young couple in their matching plaid padded hoodies exclaiming with glee over the Disney princess dolls. Top right is a restaurant billboard included because it recommends "Well-being" pasta and risotto. Everything in Seoul is promoted as being "well-being" these days: well-being walnuts, well-being beauty-care, well-being peach water, etc.
And here are the Hanok homes in Bukchon village. Hanok is traditional Korean architecture, made of wood, stone and earth. The homes are tightly packed together along narrow, steep, winding alleys ringed with mountains (the parked cars needed wheel-stoppers - see bottom left). It was very scenic in the new fallen snow, and we enjoyed the details of carved porches, elaborate hidden doors and papered windows. Jamie was cold and crying though, so perhaps a warmer-weather visit next time. The neighbourhood main street was full of coffee shops, European bistros, and jewellery stores and it is a popular place to stroll and shop for trendy urbanites in search of tradition, but it was a bit tricky for those of us with strollers and hungry babies to find a place to rest. Lucky there were perches for all imaginable owls, once you knew where to look.
