Walk Down the Memory Lane at the Memory Museum

Even after the closing of this year’s Jeonju International Film Festival, the festive people continue to crowd the streets of Jeonju Hanok Village. Yet, right next to the Hanok Village, Dongmun Street has interesting attractions that only Jeonju can offer. Today, I’ll revive my childhood days at the Memory Museum located on the Dongmun Street.

Coming across my old memories in Jeonju

The word “memory” reminds me of mostly happier childhood memories. It must not have been all happy back in those days. I wonder why the lingering dim childhood images still makes me nostalgic of those days.

I’m greeted with the long-lost childhood playthings as I enter the Memory Museum. There used to be whac-a-mole machine almost everywhere. I played with it a while before entering. In the café, me and my sisters reminisced our childhoods over a cup of warm tea.

The Memory Museum was originally located in the Hanok Village in 2007. The museum moved to the current location due to the soaring rent price of the Hanok Village. Now the museum shares the building with the Luielle Hat Culture Center. The museum founder’s childhood memories continue to greet the nostalgic visitors.

Ready to travel back in time?

I entered the museum with my sisters, now all turned into the middle-aged women. We are astonished and excited to come across the exact things that we used to play with when we were little girls.

After a sip of tea, naturally, my eyes are on the wall. I’m magically drawn to the paper dolls, slap-match cards, marbles, onesies, shoes, and similar things. Now I can’t imagine how I played with these things.

There are much to do in the Memory Museum. I can have a peek at my childhood and the school days. I can marvel at the museum owner’s private collection, which changes every season. Then I can quietly have my own walk down the memory lane while sipping a cup of tea. If there’s someone with you to share your old memories with, the better.

Luielle Hat Culture Center

The Memory Museum shares the building with the Luielle Hat Culture Center. With only 3,000 won entrance fee, you can visit both premises. Combining a high-end designer hat brand and cultural contents, the Luielle Hat Culture Center is the first of its kind in Asia that focuses on hat.

The Luielle hats are quite different from the baseball caps that I wear daily. They’re the hats I often see in the Western impressionist paintings. With the Luielle hat, anyone can feel like sitting in a 19^th century Parisienne salon. My sisters seemed unable to leave the hat shop in the 1^st floor.

It was written on the center’s stair that “a hat is a pathway into one’s everything, beyond one’s ideals, philosophy, and reality”.

It’s surprising that a hat can show a person’s everything. Maybe true, because the most trivial detail can lead to the biggest ideas. Today is only a day in my lifetime, but it won’t comeback. So I’ll try to savor the moment in the Memory Museum. Seize the day everyone!