When you meet SEOUL, SEOULMATE : National Hangeul Museum & Han River Picnic [ Lee Chon ]

LUNA

May 31, 20234 min read

Hello, everyone!

We are Seoul Mate,

a college student tourism volunteer club that provides free tours to foreigners.

Have you heard of the sentence that "When you meet SEOUL, SEOULMATE."?

It's a slogan expressing our club.

We are trying to let foreigners know the hidden charm of Seoul.

We offer a wide variety of tour courses.

I would like to explain one of them,

National Hangeul Museum & Han River Picnic [ Lee Chon ]. :)

The estimated time of tour is about 4 hours (including picnic),

and an admission fee to a museum is free.

But, you have to prepare transportation fee or card.

The National Hangeul Museum opened on October 9, 2014 to create and promote the literary and cultural value of Hangeul, the best cultural heritage of our people.

The National Hangeul Museum is a place to investigate, collect, and study Korean language materials scattered at home and abroad, show the cultural diversity and future value of Hangeul through exhibitions, and bloom Hangeul culture with Hangeul education aimed at communication and empathy beyond generations and nationalities.

If you apply for this tour, you can know King Sejong, the fourth king of Joseon.

In 1443, he created our letter 'Hunminjeongeum'.

In 1446, he created the book Hunminjeongeum, which revealed the purpose

and principles of creating new characters, and the introduction of Hunminjeongeum

is designed with the new world that Sejong dreamed of through Hunminjeongeum.

So, The exhibition hall consists of seven spaces according to the sentence at the beginning of Hunminjeongeum』.

I prepared a brief explanation because I thought it would be easier to understand if you study the people who worked hard to make Hangul before going this museum.

If you're interested in this tour, I recommend you read this!

< King Sejong >

King Sejong made a book explaining how to farm well for the people. But the illiterate people couldn't read the book, and King Sejong thought about this problem. Eventually, Sejong decided to make characters that are easy for the people to use. Originally, knowing how to read letters itself was power, so now it was amazing that all the people could read them. Also, he made a lot of efforts because he wanted the people to gain knowledge easily through Hangeul. Our guides will kindly explain his specific achievements through the museum tour.

< Joo Si-kyeong >

Unlike the creation of Hunminjeongeum, there are some missing characters. The reason for this change was the study of Hangeul by scholars.

One of them is Joo Si-kyung.

He is also a person who campaigned for independence during Japanese colonial era,

when Japan forcibly occupied the Republic of Korea. While he was making newspapers to make people easily access independence activities, he realized that the spelling of Hangul was not unified at the time, so he thought it should be fixed. As a result, he established the 'Korean Language Research Institute' and systematically studied Hangul. Thanks to this, the modern Hangul system was established.

Additionally, with the explanations of the our guides, you will have a valuable experience of knowing the history, the development process, the beauty and the charm of it.

And we go to Sebit Island Island for the Han River picnic, the last course of this tour!

It is an opportunity to experience a picnic at the Han River, which not only Korean university students but also Seoul citizens enjoy.

Let's enjoy a cozy picnic while enjoying the night view of Namsan Mountain and the rainbow fountain!

I’m sure that you will be glad you did <3

# REVIEW

- The guides are super friendly and easy to talk to. We had a great time!

-It was really interesting to learn about the korean language and seeing the museum.

- Great little tour of one floor of the museum to learn about history Hangeul! Friendly people!

- Interacting with all the guides was really great.

- Everyone was enthusiastic and kept the conversation flowing.

- Knowing about the history of Hangul, seeing the sights

- Very friendly and hard working, interesting topics

- I like the pace of the tour. Sometimes I worry that I will not have time to read the exhibits but Seoulmate's pace was very good.

- Going to Museum with group of people. Meeting new friends. Have fun together.

- All are very cooperative during the visit.

- Organization was absolutely fantastic. I liked everything. Student guys were very friendly and attentive. Every member of the tour was surrounded by care. Picnic was great, despite rainy weather.

- The first and the main - the people. This is a great experience when you meet natives who not in the work (like in hotel or shop) and wants to help you and speak with you. I'm just happy that you are :-)

- Nice Preparation for the tour and wonderful location

- Very fun group of people.

- The tour guides explained everything pertaining to the tour in detail. They even interpreted the video at the museum. They were all so friendly and nice!

- It's really nice to be able to talk with Korean students and understand Korean culture better. Even though I was already interested in Hangeul, I learned new things. And the picnic by the Han River was really enjoyable.

- I liked that every one of guides (Seoulmate members) had their parts of guiding in the museum. We could communicated with every one. Ask questions if we didn't understand something. We could speak about everything and not just about tour topic.

- Very informative on the tour & knew the history/details of the tour they were giving.

- The Han River Picknick ... was very special - a category of its own“ - of course, the Hangul Museum tour on its own is a very good concept.

- The explanations during the tour were very insightful.