Day 9 - c) Kaesong and Koryo Museum

Sunday September 12, 2010

Driving back from the DMZ we had a chance to look over Kaesong. As previously mentioned the city is set in an aesthetically pleasing valley. Terrific photo opportunities were available on the hill where the obligatory Kim Il Sung statue was situated:

Main boulevard of Kaesong.

Being an ancient capital the view out to the old town was absorbing, with thousands of traditional style houses laid out over an endless network of narrow streets:

The view over old town in Kaesong.

Koryo Museum in Kaesong was our next destination. This facility exhibited ancient cultural relics with a focus on the Koryo dynasty obviously. The museum itself is physically located in an old Confucian school from that period. The local museum guide here seemed decidedly uninterested, just mechanically reciting her memorised explanations of artifacts and impatiently waiting for the translation to finish.

Our time in this historical city was rounded out at a traditional Kaesong-style lunch, featuring numerous tiny golden bowls of dishes crowding the table - yum:

Lunch at Kaesong.