Seoul Trip (English Part2)

Museum/gallery and nightclub were the major places I wanted to go in Seoul. I already wrote about the latter in a previous entry so it is for the former this time.

Most of the national museums were either free or very cheap but yet exhibitions were still interesting and there were also a variety of independent galleries around the city. I was able to enjoy those even better than I thought.

This is Seoul Museum of Art, which is in the central area of the city. All exhibitions were free to enter and two of them I went to, The one was group exhibition focus on contemporary arts of domestic artists in Korea and the other one was also a collective exhibition of avant-garde artists from 80s of NYC, were stimulating.

My favourite museum is Gallery Hyundai, where I always go to when I visit Seoul. There is always an interesting exhibition for free entrance. Actually, this is the place where I discovered now my favourite artist Wim Delvoye, A Belgian artist whose works blew me away at the gallery.

There is another museum in the same area which I forgot to take a picture. National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is probably the most famous one in Seoul as it has more than four branches inside and outside of downtown Seoul. It was holding an exhibition of Marcel Duchamp, which I went to in Japan, last time I visited there. Sadly the ticket was less than half price in Seoul even though the exhibition was also held at a national museum in Japan.

That is actually one of the things what I hate in Japan to live. A price of any cultural things such as concert, movie, exhibition and other events related to art is harshly expensive because the government does not allot many resources for it while military expenditure has been increasing in every year and furthermore, they will raise up the consumption tax from 8% to 10% in this fall. So, fuck this country.

I also visited the Gwacheon branch of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in the huge park called Seoul Grand Park, which located a suburban area of Seoul. I just loved the atmosphere of the park and its extensive scale. The large lake in the center of the park was entirely frozen, The air was so clear, Non of trees alongside the streets had left leaves. All elements around the park made me feel lonely somehow but also warm at the same time.

There was a work of honourable Japanese splotch woman.

The transportations I used in Korea were a car or train and the fee of the train was unbelievably affordable compared to Tokyo. It was more than three times cheaper than the subway here.

I stayed a bit far from downtown so that I had leisure time on the train to observe people and the environment. Following are the unique facts I found from a perspective of Japanese.

1. People can use a credit card directly as a pass
2. Calling is allowed (It is meaninglessly banned in Japan)
3. Every platform in every station has suicide prevention doors
4. Some people sell stuff like a face mask, smartphone case and gloves
5. And some people actually buy it
6. Cleaning staff wipes the floor while the train is running
7. They have a priority seat only for the pregnant woman.

The last one gave me the strongest impression as I also saw a parking spot only for a woman in the park before. It seemed the society is trying to support women.

However, women are still a lot weaker than men socially according to Korean friends. I could see that via news and actual stories of my friends' experiences. Yet, in my opinion, they are far ahead than Japan, whose society allowed the magazine to publish the article which ranked which university's female student is easy to hook up or pushed a member of girls band to make an apology for the assaulting incident she involved as a victim.

To be continued→