Trick Eye Museum Seoul

After being in the hot sun all day at the Gyeongbokgung Palace, we decided to do an indoor activity.  The Trick Eye Museum had high reviews and it was indoor!  We took the subway to the Hongik University Station.  I followed the directions I found on the Tour Korea app, until the very last step which had me turn down a street between two stores.  I could only find one of the named stores.  We turned down what seemed to be an outdoor market.  After about 200 yards and still seeing only markets, we knew we took a wrong turn somewhere.  We walked back to the main road and luckily there was a tourist information kiosk right across the street.  I went in and found out I should have turned one street sooner.  They also gave me a 20% off coupon for the museum!  Score!!  We went down the correct road and found the museum.  The museum was in the basement, and we had to walk down a flight of stairs.  We are greeted by three art exhibit photo spots.  Each had a slightly inappropriate attribute.  There was also a sign above the ticket counter and it said adults only, no children and no something else that is innapropriate for a rated G blog (or PG or even a PG-13).  We finally noticed it was a “Love Museum”.  Not what we wanted. The Trick Eye was one more level down.  I don’t know about you, but it would make more sense to put the Love Museum on the bottom floor, so kids didn’t have to walk past the three exhibits. That was frustrating...

We get to the correct museum and the very first thing we see is a painting on the floor of a waterfall and a  bridge crossing the waterfall.  At first look, it seems strange to see the log, but then Big Sis stands on the log and pretends to walk across it, and at that point the entire painting comes alive!!  Not alive as in it was moving, but alive as in it seriously looked real!  We finally realize it's called the Trick Eye Museum because we are able to participate in the paintings and they come alive and become real to the eye as we are able to step in, on and out of the art exhibits. 

When we buy the tickets, the lady asks if I have a smartphone, and tells me to download the Trick Eye app.  After downloading the app, she shows me how to use it.  When you take pictures with the app, or look at the art with the app, it literally comes alive through the phone.  The first scene is of a volcano.  The kids stand around the volcano and when we look through the app and take a picture or video though the app, the volcano erupts and blows rocks all around the kids.  One strange thing about the volcano art is a little kid (or it could have been an alien) is standing at the foot of the volcano looking as if screaming, but it had it’s pants down and was in underwear.  We should have taken our hint from this subtle mark for a few exhibits to come, but at the time we just thought it was weird. 

The next room had about 6 or 7 exhibits.  The favorite from this room was definitely the flying unicorns (M&M’s dream come true!)

and riding on a dolphon (Big Sis and Little A’s dream come true).  

There was a neat painting in the corner, which appeared to be a bird breaking into a bottle.  In this room there was three mermaids with a completely nude top.  Little A sticks her head in for one of the mermaids and says “Take a Picture, I’m a mermaid!”, but it is so real looking that it is seriously inappropriate.  She doesn’t understand what’s wrong.  Lol!  Oh the innocent little ones. 

The next room had about 6-7 exhibits also.  We have fun in a room that uses space to portray things larger and smaller!

Here are a few from this room:

We are welcomed in the next room by three boys peeing in a lake.  We get a full front view of all the boys.  The girls all turn away and protest their disgust.  All I hear are “Ewwwww”, “Grosss”, and “Why is that here?”  But in the same room Big Sis saves M&M from being eaten by a gigantic human eating fish.

The next room had a life size painted swimming pool with many photo opportunities.  The kids all have fun pretending to synchronize swim, and dive off boards. 

Little Monster and Little A are able to swim in an aquarium,

I’m nominated for a Grammy Award,

Big Sis grows wings,

then I grown wings.

The last room is like an enchanted room!  This is by far my favorite room!  The paintings are vibrant and so gorgeous!  Big Sis walks up stairs to heaven.

The kids ride in a boat on a lake,

then climb up a bamboo tree.

In each room there was at least one exhibit that had some portion of nudity or something inappropriate.  It was disappointing that it had these as part of the experience.  We just told the kids it must be Korean culture and we just don’t participate in those exhibits.  It was a great opportunity to teach our kids about different cultures and also about what to do if faced with something inappropriate.  

There were two parts to the Trick Eye Museum, one was the 3-dimensional picture section and the other was an Ice World.  Outside the Ice World was a room size picture of a frozen waterfall, where Kevin pretended to drop Little Monster and M&M was pretending to catch him!

There was also small covers outside Ice World, that we were required to put on.  We thought it was weird, until we walked into Ice World and realized the name is exactly what we were walking into.  We walked into a room that was below freezing!  There were ice sculptures of the insides of a house, a yard, and animals.  It was so extremely freezing cold that we didn’t get any pictures.  We basically ran around to see the rooms.  However, there was an ice slide.  We did stay in Ice World long enough to go down the slide a few times.  Now that was fun!  After being in Ice World for about 5 minutes, we couldn’t bear it any longer and ran out of the door.  We had such a good time.  The pictures were definitely viewed by each of the kids at least 10 times each.  They loved looking back and pretending they really had ridden on a unicorn or grew wings.