Mokpo's Museum Road

Exploring Mokpo can really be done over a couple of days and should be saved for the occasional visit from back home. One those days can be spent on Mokpo's Museum Road, my name for the Gatbawi Cultural District which is a strip of waterfront property between Yibam-san and Gatbawi that hosts most of Mokpo's museums.

The Mokpo Culture and Arts Center

문화예술회관 (aka MunHwa YeoSul HoeGwan) is the Culture and Arts Center and made famous on this blog for hosting the MCS's reunion concert. It's not really a museum but it's the largest building on the strip and is the main civic center in Mokpo, boasting 6 exhibition rooms and a 700 seat concert hall.

The Mokpo Natural History Museum

자연사박물관 (aka JaYeonSa BakMulGwan) is the Natural History Museum. The museum is typical of other natural history museums (i.e full of stuffed, taxidermied animals, pretty chunks of minerals, and giant dinosaurs skeletons posed in attack positions) but without the Victorian era dioramas. The ticket also gets you into the neighboring Local History Museum that specializes in the local history of Mokpo.

The National Maritime Museum

국립해양유물전시관 (aka GukRip HaeYang YuMul JeonSiGwan) is the National Maritime Museum, the only museum in Korea dedicated to nautical archeology. Its main exhibition is the display of over 3,000 recovered pieces of Koryo celadon, over 22,000 recovered pieces of pottery and of course the remains of the Shinan Ship, a 14th-century yuan ship discovered in 1975 just north of Mokpo in Shinan, and the primary source of the museum's artifacts.

The Korean Industrial Pottery Museum

한국산업도자전시관 (aka HanGuk SanEop DoJa JeonSiGwan) is the Korean Industrial Pottery Museum according the building or the Ceramic Livingware Museum according to the website and specializes in the Korean pottery. The museum also doubles as pottery school with numerous pottery classes and workshops that lean more towards groups of children than adults.

The Namnong Memorial Museum

남농기념관 (aka Namnong GiNyeomGwan) is the Namnong Memorial Museum is an art gallery dedicated to the life and work of the artist 남농 허건 (aka Namnong HoKon) and his contemporaries. Namnong spent most of his life and the 20th century in Mokpo, becoming famous for his contribution to the Namjonghwa school (translated as the "Southern Style") of Korean painting.

The Mokpo Literature Museum

문학관 (aka MunHak Gwan) is the Literature Museum and it doesn't have a Naver Local page or provide any kind of English translation. So I'm guessing that it's a fairly new addition the strip but the least likely to attract English speaking patrons.