Kimchi Museum

On Saturday Mel and I visited the Kimchi Field Museum, which is conveniently located in the COEX Mall near Samseung Station. This is certainly the most interesting museum I've visited since the Museum Of Drinking Water in Taipei. Don't know what kimchi is? Well then, you've never smelled a Korean bathroom. It's spicy pickled cabbage, but as we learned at the museum there are many amazing varieties of kimchi to eat and enjoy.

Kimchi ferments in giant brown barrels for several months before it's ready to be eaten. Where else can you see these miracle barrels but in the Kimchi Museum? Or on the street outside of every apartment building on my block.

A series of models showed us how kimchi is made, step by step. My favorite part is her bloody looking hands. That's not blood, though... it's delicious red pepper paste!

Early kimchi-related scriptures from the 12th century.

Photo op!

There is a section about the health benefits of kimchi at the museum. This sign claims that kimchi prevents intestinal cancer, and I've recently read claims that kimchi cures H1N1 and is the reason the rate of HIV is so low in Korea. Surrrrre. And I bet that the Koreans' diet of eating the world's most pickled and over-spiced food 3 times a day has absolutely no relation to the fact that stomach cancer is the #2 killer in Korea. Just sayin'.

There was a huge kimchi library where I read a book about cordon bleu kimchi. The recipes looked... offensive.

There was a tasting room where (according to the sign) you could taste kimchi for up to 30 minutes. I don't do kimchi, but Mel tried one of each type. She likes kimchi, but as you can tell from the picture, this stuff had issues.

There was a kimchi fridge to look through. Guess what was inside? If you said kimchi, congratulations, you just earned a sticker for your sticker board.

Finally, there was a guest book where you could leave your thoughts about kimchi. One person very rudely wrote "I hate kimchi", though most of the other entries were along the lines of "at first I didn't like kimchi, but now I can kind of stomach it". We didn't write anything... save it for the blog, right?

If you like rooting through fridges and posing with mannequins, I highly recommend a visit to the Kimchi Field Museum. One of the nice employees there gave us a great guidebook to the museums of Seoul (there's a lot!) so expect a post about the Chicken Art Museum sooner rather than later! Peace!