Day 268: An Unequal Mix

My good buddy Luke who lives way out in Chungju came into Seoul today so I made plans to meet up with him. Before doing so, Michael and I continued our weekend tradition of Sunday brunch and a movie. This week we watched 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and it just may be the best movie I've seen all year. A great cast, truly original screenplay, and some fantastic acting. If you haven't already seen it, go out and rent it! It's awesome. Two thumbs up from Scotty.

Luke and I decided to do something 'touristy' today so we went and checked out the Korean War Memorial. The KWW is like the mother of all museums here in Seoul. It's ginormous and monolithic - a very large and imposing and intimidating structure that looks like Mussolini built it or something. It contains a fantastic museum dedicated to Korea's LONG history of war and military action. This poor little country has suffered more than its fair share of war and violence over the centuries, with the Korean War especially highlighting this fact.

We spent a good three hours or so wandering through the museum and easily could've stayed longer had it not been for the fact that the museum was closing soon. The exhibits were interesting but many contained exaggeration, half-truths, and/or propaganda, ranging in scale from mere suggestive to outright blatant! In some cases historical 'facts' were either inaccurate misrepresentations of actual events, or certain key historical happenings were omitted entirely. Were it not given for the fact that I was hanging with Luke who is far smarter than I and knows a great deal about political science and history, most of it I wouldn't have even caught. The three hour exposure to Korean spindoctoring and propaganda was an unequal mix of being unsettling, confusing, thought-provoking and amusing. I enjoyed the museum though, overall, and definitely plan on returning again.

We made a quick requitory (sp?) trip to Yongsan Electronics Market afterwards so Luke could pick up his quota of DVD's and other electronic goodies before heading to Itaewon for dinner. We had a kick-ass Indian dinner at New Delhi before parting separate ways. We're meeting up again next weekend to do something cultural again and it should be fun. When I got home I went over to Addie's and we watched 'She's All That' ("I feel just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, only without the whole hooker thing!") and then it was bedtime for me.