Latest
National Folk Museum of Korea: A Free Look at Everyday Korean Life Inside Gyeongbokgung
If you are already visiting Gyeongbokgung Palace, there is a free museum inside the same grounds that many travelers walk right past: the National Folk Museum of Korea . The palace shows you how kings lived. This museum shows you how everyone else lived - farmers, merchants, families - and that is the part of Korea most visitors never get to see. Traditional white porcelain jars in the permanent exhibition. Photo: Korea Tourism Organization (KOGL Type 3) Why It Is Worth Your Time Most museums in Seoul focus on royal treasures. The National Folk Museum is different. It is about ordinary daily life: what people ate, how they farmed through the four seasons, how they celebrated a baby's first birthday, how they held weddings and funerals. If you have ever wondered why Koreans still do certain things today - bowing on Lunar New Year, preparing food for ancestral rites, the first-birthday party called doljanchi - this is where the background starts to make sense. Admission is fr...