(Jangdokdae- A terrace where Koreans used to store pickled or fermented food like Gochujang or soy sauce/ The pots are called hangari)
After enjoying rice cakes and tea at Jilsiru, we decided to visit the rice cake and traditional kitchen utensils museum that are located in a same building. After paying the entrance fee (6,000 won (US $ 6.30) for 2, I thought it was pretty expensive from the beginning), we went up to the second floor where the rice cake museum was. It wasn’t very crowded. There were a couple of families and some kids doing their winter vacation homework. Then I saw a “Do not take pictures” sign. *big disappointed sigh* The exhibition room was a lot smaller than I expected. There were some collections of some rice cakes and traditional equipment that are used for making rice cakes. I have seen most of those as I grew up in text books or TV or even in my house.
(Below - two pictures taken in the rice cake museum at the end of our visit to Jilsiru.)
(Ddeoksal - Rice cake pattens)
After staying in that floor about 5 minutes with disappointment, we went up to the third floor where the traditional kitchen utensil museum was. The very first display you will see is this.
(5 cheop bansang (5 side dish meal) : Rice, soup, stew, soy sauce and 5 other side dishes, Kimchi doesn’t count as a side dish) Do you think it is a lot of side dishes? Yet King and noble people had 12 side dish meal. Crikey!
Surprisingly there was no sign of “Do not take pictures”. So I grabbed the chance, then I just gave it a quick look and we left. I stopped at the second floor and took some sneaky pictures in a section where there was no “Do not take pictures sign”. 
(Left part of picture - rice cake making tools such as measuring cups and rice flour mill)
If you haven’t seen any of those before in your life, you might find them interesting. Yet there were no explanation about the tools, so you wouldn’t have any clue. I think they should reduce the entrance fee for the quality of the museum.
- Address : 164-2, Waryong-dong, Jongno-Gu, Seoul
- Open : Monday- Saturday 10:00~17:00, Sunday 12:00~17:00
- Traffic info - (Subway) line 1, 3, 5 Jongno 3 ga station Exit No.7
- Entrance fee : 3,000 won for an individual adult, 2,000 won for a student (adult fee applies to uni students) / 2,000 won each for adults in a group, 1,000 won each for students in a group (group means more than 20 people)
Related Post
Ddeok (Korean Rice Cake) Cafe - Jilsiru
Food Culture, kitchen utensil, Korean, museum, rice cakes
