트릭아이미술관 | Trick Eye & Ice Museum

Accurate representation.

Back in June, I posted about the Trick Eye Museum in Hongdae, which ended up as a fail because we forgot to bring any money with us (Ah, the dark days before we had bank cards)

So, what with it being rainy and miserable, we thought it could be a fun indoor activity for the day to try again!

What I didn't realise is that the Ice Museum and Trick Eye are both included under the same ticket, so the price actually isn't as high as I'd thought it was. Unless this was a special event for the holidays, which is also likely.

We thought we'd head to the Ice Museum first, considering we felt hot and stuffy despite the rain.

They're not kidding about the ice. Upon showing our ticket, we were handed a very trendy looking poncho/raincoat hybrid, and guided through something that looked rather uncomfortably like an industrial freezer door (which, thinking about it, it probably was) and were immediately hit by a blast of freezing, dry air. Like the freezer section of a supermarket, or a broken air conditioner. Goodness me.

Pretty much everything in here - besides the walls and floor - is made of ice. 

One of the first things I saw was an igloo. Most people were, sensibly, ignoring the fact you could go inside, but as if I'm going to pass up the chance to do that. The shocked face you see above is my sudden realisation that a frozen floor with a small summer dress is so not the one.

Me, gazing out at the sensible people.

The rest of the 'museum' is just an array of ice sculptures, mostly Christmas-themed (understandable really), and at the back is a whole house made of ice. Even the TV and picture frames have funny little images frozen into them, the freezer has some food visible deep in the permafrost, and...I decided not to take a photo of the toilet and its rather gross attention to detail. That is, I hope it was attention to detail.

I wanted to lie on the bed for the sole purpose of an amusing photo but apparently it's not allowed. Boo.

Check out my cool new living room. Ha. Hahahaha.

As you finish looking around the house, there's a staircase up to an ice slide. This sounds a) safe and b) comfortable.

Of course I went down it. Even in my dress. I'll give you some advice now: don't wear a dress to Trick Eye if you're uncomfortable with people seeing your pants, otherwise you'll miss out on all the fun. Luckily, I always wear shorts under dresses.

Back out in the warm with a slight brainfreeze, it was once again time to confront the pooing man, check out the 'demo' Trick Eye, and then head in.

Or should I say "head off"? I'm hilarious, don't deny it.

Inside the actual museum, it's pretty busy. There's a lot of people and not a lot of space, because they've really crammed in as many paintings as possible. Some are better than others, and naturally the better ones are the busier ones.

 It's a great day out, and really lets you be creative with your photos, although when it's busy the rush can make this difficult if you don't want to annoy people.

 

By far the bit I was most excited about was the little Ames Room they have, tucked away with a staff member to patiently take your photos from the designated viewing spot. They'll take at least two photos for you, letting you switch sides for maximum effect.

For those not aware (psych major alert! *bump*) an Ames Room is a fun perspective trick, where a room is built where both the ceiling and floor are at a slant. Decorations appropriately skewed are sometimes added for extra effect, and when you stand in one specific viewing point, the room looks normal. Stick two people in, however, and one will be huge and the other tiny.

Shingeki No Chelle

Finally, all my dreams have come to fruition.

The best way of seeing this is through video though, because it's WAY more trippy. The queue was too long for us to ask for one, so here's a clip nabbed from YouTube (skip to 0:20 for the best bit):

I don't really know how much more I can say about the illusions, so I'll just share some of my favourite photos from the day.

 

At the end of the exhibition is a mysterious red curtain and... a mirror maze. Of course. Luckily, t's not too hard, although I did actually get lost for a bit, and nobody ran into anything. The best mirror mazes always have glass panels too, to really mess with you, and thankfully this was not such a maze.

It's actually a pretty tiring place to go, with all the acrobatics and silliness the pictures draw out of you. When we emerged from Trick Eye's underground lair, it was raining pretty heavily. Hongdae's fun, but not that great. Especially without an umbrella. So we went home to eat, and I feel like this is the day we went to the cinema.

The first time we went to the cinema it was all kinds of stressful. We didn't know how to use our bank cards, didn't know where an ATM was, and could barely speak any Korean past "hello". So naturally, it was difficult. We eventually bought them through a service that books everything for you so all you have to do is collect the tickets, alas with two similarly-named theatres in our area, we went for the wrong one. They kindly swapped it over for us, but this time we were determined to succeed.

We went for Guardians of the Galaxy, and thankfully most blockbusters here don't seem to be dubbed, only subbed in Korean which is pretty easy to ignore on a screen that big. Buying the tickets this time was so easy I could have screamed. With joy, of course.

What film? 가디언즈 오브 갤럭시 주세요. How many tickets? 4게. Which seats? 이거 *point to seats on screen* *hand over card* *sign* 감사합니다~~~

I feel like this is a nice sign that we've progressed a little in our Korean. Even if half of it was technically in English (gadieonjeu obeu gaelleokshi), and the rest is comparable to the way a toddler would speak, that's one whole Korean toddler we're almost on par with. Not bad for a few months?