This past weekend I ventured to the The War Memorial of Korea also known as The Sanctuary of National Defense. I have to admit that I expected a brief run through of some nice busts and a wall of names commemorating the fallen in battle and that’s about it. I had often passed the site whizzing by in taxis, but the scope of the place never truly hit me until I actually went there.
The War Memorial not only commemorates those fallen in the Korean War, but also all those who fought in throughout the history of Korea. From Major Jang Jae-gu to Admiral Yi Sun-Sin. Here is the Memorial Hall that “pays respect to Korea’s patriotic forefathers who devoted and sacrificed their life for the fatherland.” The end of this hallway leads to the Memorial Hall Creation which houses a monument to those slain. I could only capture part of its majesty. Here is the fountain on top of the display where the beam of light shines down from above.
One of the best exhibits included the Turtle Shaped Battleship along with a couple of its sister ships. I doubt the flat screen TV came included in the original back in the day, but you know because the Korean people never cease to amaze me. Another section of the memorial inexplicably contained prehistoric relics and tools and dinosaur bones. And also these renditions of the Eastern Zodiac symbols. Can you find your match?
Here is the Great Victory at the Salsu River. Followed by a series of paintings that depict various battles and skirmishes throughout Korea’s embattled past. Here are some of the armor and wardrobe of the soldiers and leaders.
The tools of the trade including the above Shingijeon-hwacha Firing Launcher invented by the Koreans.
The Great Victory at Gwiju!
Yes, you have my permission. Thanks for dropping by!
could i please use one of your wonderful images for Citizendium – similar to Wikipedia.It’s the MLRS hwacha image – the one with holes & rocket arrows sticking out of it.If you release it under creative commons license, then we can use it on our encyclopedia site here – for this article – http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Korean_War_of_1592-1598& we’ll give you credit.Thanks.
Yeah, I was surprised to with the amount of stuff crammed into that building. I still don’t think I saw it all!
So apparently I should go IN the museum. I went once on a holiday and it was closed. We climbed all over the stuff outside and I’ve never gotten around to going back…