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Jan 10, 2026 | 6:36 am

#11

DeathSlam

Join Date: Oct 2014

Location: UK

Programs: Mucci Diamond Hairbrush Elite, BAC silver. EBG, AF Blue

Posts: 5,065

Day 9: Museum SAN

I don't remember how I found out about this museum, but I wanted to do some sort of trip out of Seoul and this was ideal.

https://www.museumsan.org/eng/

I had managed to navigate the KTX process to book train tickets in first class from Seoul to Manjong station (£7 each way). The tickets sell out super quickly, they were almost completely gone just an hour or so after they had gone on sale, so don't rely on being able to book tickets for the KTX on the day in my opinion. The KTX is Korea's bullet train and travels at 200kph.

Tickets in hand I got the to KTX platform in Seoul station and boarded. Nobody at any point on the outgoing or return checked my ticket, but all the seats were reserved seats and all taken. A couple of times a guard came into the carriage and walked up and down, but they didn't engage with anyone. When they left each carriage they briefly turned back towards the passenger and bowed to them (love that).

On arrival at Manjong my carefully written Korean directions were unintelligable to the taxi driver. But since there is very little in the Wonju region that might be of interest to foreigners he figured out that I wanted to go to Museum SAN and seemed happy for the fare a bit beyond the local region (the fare was less that £10 in the end).

San means 'Mountain' in Korean. So although it is styled as Space, Architecture, Nature, this is a bit of a backronym as it's basically 'museum on a mountain'.

Since this was all I was intending to do today I went for the full package at the museum. There is a base entry cost and a few exhibits\experiences that cost extra. The lady selling me the ticket warned me that it would take 4 hours, but that wasn't a problem for me as I have about 7 hours here. The problem is that all the experiences are limited in numbers and have timed entry slots, so you need to schedule exactly when you will do each one when you buy the ticket. There was no problem with spaces in the middle of winter, but I can imagine in summer you may be out of luck if you don't book in advance. The experiences were an Anthony Gormley exhibition space build by the architect who designed the main museum, an impressive optical illusion space (James Turrel) and a meditation class. All were very good and worth the $. There is also a paper gallery, a sculpture park, some exhibitions of modern Korean artists and probably most importantly the architecture of the place itself and its setting in the mountains.

When finished here I walked back towards a lady at the ticket desk, before I reached her she said "Taxi?" and they rang one for me which turned up about 10 minutes later to take me to Manjong. So I never had to navigate the Korean taxi app I had downloaded on to my phone, phew. No ripoff taxi drivers in Korea either, both were very nice and I paid the same price as the locals.

While waiting for the train back I had another glimpse into how safe South Korea is. One solo lady in the waiting room went off to the loo. She thought nothing about leaving her phone and handbag in the waiting room while she went off. A previous guide told me that this is because there are cameras everywhere in South Korea, but trust me, in the UK if you behave like that all your stuff will get nicked cameras of no cameras.

Back to the room about 10pm in the end after a lovely relaxing and calm day.