Our day of exploring began at this palace ...

... with these sweet children.

We then journeyed to the War Memorial of Korea (the largest of it's kind). Unfortunately, the museum was closed that day in honor of Chuseok, however the memorial grounds were open to the public, which is an entire outdoor exhibition, housing Korean War monuments and an extensive collection of military equipment used during that time period. 

Walking through the grounds was rather powerful and I was moved by several of the statues depicting the hardships that were endured during the war.

It is hard to believe that the conflict was not that long ago. The amount of civilian and military lives that were lost is overwhelming. A war that has been coined “The Forgotten War” in the U.S. (overshadowed by the Vietnam War), is very much remembered here and still families are separated by the division of the North and South.

I thought this was a very touching statue (below)

As we were leaving the memorial grounds, this lady approached us. She wanted to tell us something but we couldn't understand her. She reached into her bag and handed me a red crayon and began repeating words as I wrote them. We weren't able to communicate with her completely, however the few words that were exchanged between us was all that was needed to be able to grasp her sincere gratitude towards America.

(pic from Rebecca)