Trick Eye Museum, Seoul

Nov 23, 2015
Day 2

First whole day in Seoul was spent in Hongdae. This was easily one of my favorite parts of the city where we can go and wander around. Lots of stores and restaurants here. To start our day, we stopped by Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf to get our coffee and matcha fix. 

Not far from here was the trick eye museum. This wasn't in our original itinerary, but I won 2 tickets for it from Air Asia's facebook contest. Awesome, right? The tickets covered admission fees for all 3 museums - trick eye, love and ice museums - worth 23,000 KRW per person, so it was a good deal. Thank you, Air Asia! ;-)

We definitely enjoyed our time here. It was a shame we had to take turns to take photos of each other and no one to take a photo of us together; but we were still able to have fun and act silly like a bunch of kids again.

When you enter the building, the love museum is on the same level as the street. We had our coupons exchanged to tickets, and we went one floor down (or was it two floors? I forgot.)  to go to the trick eye museum, ice museum and carnival street. There was a like an indoor square/plaza with fountain decors at the center. There were tables and chairs where people can rest and eat, as well as food stalls and a souvenir shop.

We first entered the carnival area. There were about 10 stalls with different games. We tried several games and won a  small cute charm. :)

Afterwards, we entered the trick eye museum. It was fun posing and pretending to be eaten by a shark, kidnapped by a dinosaur and grow an afro to name a few. I don't think we were able to see everything because my companion had to pee and the museum only allow guests to enter once. Still, it was nice. I won't suggest this to solo travelers, though. This won't be as fun without someone to get wacky with and take your photos, unless you have a tripod and a timer/remote shutter in your camera. Although I'm not sure if tripods were allowed inside the museum. Here are some snaps.

Going out the trick eye museum was fun. It was a mirror maze and you have to find your way out! That was really awesome. We spent around 10mins finding the exit. There were 2 ladies as well, an elderly and her daughter and even they had a lot of fun going around in circles and following us. That was the best part for me. I didn't know that the exit was a mirror maze and I really had a lot of fun in there. Hahaha!

Up next was the love museum. Children aren't allowed here for good reason. Lol. I think you should be at least 18yo to be allowed to enter, and it would be a good idea to bring an ID for proof. We had a good laugh seeing all the naughty stuff inside. It was fun and funny and interesting, especially the toilet displays. Lol. Too lewd? Maybe. Depends on your taste so you be the judge, should you decide to go. So as not to spoil the surprise, and to keep my post somewhat non-NSFW, I'll be posting only the mild stuff. *wink*

Last stop was the ice museum. The temperature was about -10C degrees. It was much smaller compared to the others. There was an ice slide and lots of ice carvings. It was so cold and I wasn't able to stay for more than 10mins inside it. Good thing we still get to take some photos.

There were other stuff outside the museums (inside the building) as well, like having your photo taken and have it transformed to a painting/drawing/oil canvass and other choices.

Saw this guy with flowers and had to pose with him. I don't know who he's supposed to be, though.

There you have it. We spent around 3 hours in here, but I don't think we were able to see everything in the trick eye museum, so maybe 4 hours is enough. This will be a nice half day activity in your itinerary where both kids and kids at heart will definitely enjoy. Again, a safety reminder: steer clear of the love museum if you're with kids. Hahaha!