Seoul 6D5N: The National Folk Museum of Korea

We just followed the crowd and exited from the backyard of Gyeongbokgung (景福宫). We followed the garden trail and it brought us straight to The National Folk Museum of Korea. The entrance is free!

Photo taken right after we exited the palace, over-looking it from the outside.

The building on the left is The National Folk Museum.

If you'd like to have a "tour guide" showing you around the museum with some stories/histories, you may refer to the following "time table" whereby, they allocate different time slots for different language mediums. As we were rather rush for the day (few more destinations awaiting us !!), we opted to tour the museum on our own. No worries, there are English descriptions everywhere, you'd have no trouble understanding any particular piece of antics.

We were lucky that the day we visited, there was this special exhibition being held:

My Jimui said it's a common rule that no one is allowed to take photos in a museum, but there were still numerous of tourists doing it. So.. Erm.. I took a few lar.. Haha.. Not gonna show here though, visit it yourself to find out lar XD 

After nearly an hour, we completed the tour and headed out to take some photos. There is this Stone Garden right outside of the museum, consists of 12 Stone Animal Gargoyles representing 12 Chinese Zodiacs, each with a square piece of stone at the bottom of the Zodiac, with years of born crafted on it.

A defocus shot practice again :)

Me, standing behind the Monkey Zodiac (my Zodiac) pinching it's ear.
Ya, monkey is some what naughty a bit wan lar.. Oopss :p

Before leaving The National Folk Museum, we went and took photo in front of a palace that has been barred from entering. Not sure what palace is that though ~~

Was it my eyes? Or the sun was too bright?

On the way heading to Samcheong-dong (三清洞), there are few other stone sculptures alongside the pathway within the museum's compound as well. 

See? Not necessarily must go all the way to Jeju to see him :D

Dolhareubang

"Dubbed as Eseokmok, Museokmok and Boksumori, Dolhareubang, a stone sculpture known as the stone grandfather, can only be found in Jeju Island. Dolhareubang was place outside of town gates to drive off evil spirits as a type of shaman's totem pole."

Dongjaseok/Bucksu/Muninseok

"Dongjaseok is a modified version of a deity statue in a temple or a statue to be placed in front of a tomb. It is an object of worship and is believed to have a protective power."
"Bucksu is a type of Korean totem pole placed at the entrance of a village or a temple to indicate the boundary or to protect as a guardian deity symbolizing the folk religion."
"Muninseok is a stone statue of a scholar to place in front of a tomb for protection. It wears an official's hat while holding an official's plaque and it is always placed in pairs."

That's all for now. Enclosed here the MAIN entrance of The National Folk Museum of Korea (which we actually exited from there pulak.. lol..). 

By walking across the street, you'd find Samcheong-dong. Will update it in a separate post. Stay tuned! * In case you have not read about our Seoul 6D5N itinerary, please click here :D