Ice Gallery

A couple of months ago I heard about a place called the "Ice Gallery".  I was told it is basically a huge walk-in freezer that has a bunch of ice sculptures in it.  I looked it up and it said that the freezer was kept around 35 degrees and if you don't bring a coat they have some there for you to borrow.  I wasn't really into wearing a coat a ton of other people had worn, but I thought it sounded like a fun hot summer day adventure.  So we dug out our heavy winter clothes to put on over our summer shorts and t-shirts and headed out to find the Ice Gallery.

My directions were pretty good but the signage for the place was not...

I don't know if you can tell but that arrow points directly to a huge brick wall.

We were so excited when we found it, but our excitement was quickly squelched when we realized it was closed. :(  We had no idea why it was closed but sometimes Korean businesses just close down when they feel like it.  So we had to put the Ice Gallery adventure off for another day. 


Fast forward ahead a few months to last weekend and we decided to give the Ice Gallery another try.  It has cooled off quite a bit here, so we already had jeans on, but we still packed up our winter coats and headed out.  We were all very happy when it was open this time.

We passed this cool looking new traditional house on our way.

We got all bundled up and were all immediately hot, it is in the upper 70's low 80's here right now--cool but not winter coat and hat weather.  Thankfully, they didn't make us wait long before they took us to the freezer.   They opened the doors and told us to take our time.  It was so cool-figuratively and literally.

There were huge ice sculptures everywhere.  Right now it is the 100th birthday of Oreos so they had an entire display of Oreos.

It's an Oreo birthday cake.

All the Oreo packages are frozen in ice.

They also had a display for the Olympics.

There was a small ice slide that the girls had a ton of fun on.

At the top of the steps.

You would go pretty fast and she flew out at the end.

They had a different rooms in a house made out of ice.
The bedroom...

The kitchen...

This was the refrigerator in the kitchen.

The living room...

Playing the ice piano

Talking on the phone and using the ice computer.

Warming themselves by the "fire"...Lucy's tush was a bit cold after going down the slide so much.

And of course no house would be complete without a bathroom...

Yes, that is an ice toilet.

Caught Russ at an awkward moment in this picture. :)

I hope people realize the toilet isn't actually real.

After the ice house they had an ice school scene.

Sitting at the ice desk

Listening to the ice teacher.

The ice whiteboard.

Next were a bunch of Korean landmarks.

An ice Buddha

One of the gates that surround Seoul.

This was a massive ice dragon.  It was so big we couldn't get it all in the picture.

It's a dark picture, but it is a huge 2012 behind us.

 Next an ice igloo and aquarium.

They were all inside the igloo.

The lights kept changing colors so it was a little bit difficult to get a good picture at times. 

The fish were a bit sluggish at this aquarium.

By the time we got through everything we were all pretty cold and ready to be done.  We left the freezer, took off all our winter clothes and went back upstairs to the main level.
For a few extra dollars you could carve your own cup out of a block of ice.  The girls thought this sounded like a lot of fun so we paid for them to do it.

Giving us a demonstration how to carve our cup.

He did it so quick and made it look so easy.

Eager to get started...

Quickly realizing it isn't as easy as the demonstration made it look...

And guess who did most of Taylor's cup...

And who did most of Lucy's.

It didn't matter who did most of the work, they still had a great time drinking soda out of their ice cups.  By the time we got them carved the cups had really started to melt.  The girls asked to take them home, but quickly realized that was not going to happen.

 For the most part we had the place to ourselves, but right before we left a huge Japanese tourist group came in and pretty much took over the small place.

At one time in this small room 3 different languages were being spoken-Korean, English and Japanese.  What a culturally diverse life we live right now.  So awesome.

Before we left we snapped a few family pictures.

Sporting the Eagles jersey at the Ice Gallery.  On the subway during the trip home a Korean boy asked me about my jersey.  He knew a lot about Philadelphia and America in general (He knew the state capital to every state...I quizzed him on most of them.  It was pretty amazing.)  He was excited to use his English on us and I was of course excited to talk about the greatest state in America with him.

Definitely one of our more unique adventures since getting to Korea.  This city has a ton of cool things to do.  If you come visit we will take you with us on our adventures.  :)