King Sejong

King Sejong The Great, is one of the most respected king in the history of Korea. He was the 4th king of the Joseon Dynasty in the 15th century. He is famous for some of the most brilliant achievements in the history of Korea, including the creation of Hangeul (Korean alphabet) and great advancements in the areas of science, culture, art and politics. Creation of Hangeul was proposed by him, as he realized that Chinese characters, which was used then in Korea, was too difficult to learn by the uneducated person. He then introduced 28 Korean alphabet, which were designed based on the pattern of mouth, tongue and teeth when the sound is made.

His statue majestically sits on the center of Seoul at the Gwanghwamun Square, overlooking the everchanging and busy city. Initially we thought it was just his statue, but guess what? These's a passage behind his statue connecting the entrance that led us back to his time and understand his story. There is a huge 3,200m2 King Sejong exhibition hall underground, which describes some of the king’s most astounding contributions to the development of Korea as a nation.

  
I love this quote.Villagers, let's act properly. If we human beings act against humanity, we may not differ from horse and ox dressing and eating like man. Hmm food for thought.

Their museums are all impressive and well-maintained. Technologies are just so naturally incorporated into the exhibits and designs. This interactive machine actually allows us to choose one of the chapters in King Sejong's famous books and mimic the act of ancient printing technique by pressing the screen. That's not it. We can send our masterpiece to our emails as a souvenir! Although we never receive them until now.

The most fun part: learn to write our names in Hangeul! The walls are full of different names and greetings from visitors all around the world. By the way, I wrote "Eve, Yong Wai Kuan, <3 Korea <3" (left to right) and the bottom line is Malaysia in Korean. Yes there are 5 words!

Mei Zhen wrote her name in Korean, which is pronounced as "Won Mae Yi Ceon". Suk Eang's was "Bael Leo Li", simply means Valerie in Korean. 

We were really proud and happy with our work until we saw this. 

Korean Language is definitely fun to learn!  And relatively easier than Chinese or Mandarin. I must continue learning the language so that when I sing Girls' Generation's songs in karaoke, I don't have to rely on the romanized lyrics. Or when I watch Running Man I don't have to read the subtitles. We'll see.  x)