Second day in Korea (5)

We were exhausted by the time we reached the top of the stairs an we took some time to rest our legs on the benches.
Thanks to the tourist information centre nearby, we found out that a bus comes by around every 20 minutes which will take us to the teddy bear museum.

 

Besides looking cute from the outside, there is a variety of re-enactments of real life events, personalities, art and historical figures all replaced by teddy bears.

These are a few I found interesting....

This muzzle bear, created in 1908, is one of the oldest teddies in the museum. I don't think I can accept the fact that it has a muzzle over it. Teddy bears are meant to be cute, not dangerous, aren't they? I rather think it'd be more appropriate to name it Hannibear Lector.

 

Here, we have Albear Einstein with his crazy hair about to have tea with a guest. 

 

Not far from Einstein, we have Superbear busy saving baby bears from an explosion.

 

While all the commotion is going on, the very cool Elvis Bearsley calmly serenades his audience in the museum.

In another continent within the museum, archeologists are busy unearthing and studying the Bearracotta. 

On a merrier note, Hong Kong celebrates its return to China.

Aside from the very cute bears making us all gush, there is also some disturbing ones. An example is the bear version of Auguste Rodin's 'The Kiss'.

Not exactly very kiddy friendly......

Moving on to another section, we also discover a grocer who tries to encourage us to eat more vegetables.

Noble....until I saw the vegetables......

Teddy carrots....a different sort of disturbing.....I'd refrain from munching on these as snacks.

The disturbing teddies later slipped from my mind when I saw this:

The cutest Winnie the Pooh I have ever seen!! If this were available at the gift shop, I'd buy him home in a heartbeat. 

Unfortunately, this Pooh bear is only strictly for display.

From there, we move back to kiddie land again with scenes from well loved stories.

An example would be this scene from Robin Hood, where Maid Marion awaits his rescue.

Last but not least, this is, in my opinion, the best bear historical figure in the museum. You don't need a caption at all to tell who he is:

There is also an outdoor display of teddy statues which we headed to.

Unfortunately, the museum closed at 7pm and we were promptly chased out of the facility. As we had read in the Korean Tourism Organisation guidebook that the museum was supposed to close at 10pm in July, we left feeling slightly cheated of our time.

While waiting for the bus to take us back to Jeju Hiking Inn, we headed to nearby shoplots to purchase something to eat and later buried ourselves under the blankets before heading to our next destination the following morning.

Note: The entrance fee for the Teddy Bear Museum is 7,000 won.