Day 10: KBS Exhibition Hall

When I think back to when I first started getting interested in all things Korean (this would have been several years back), it really all started with a single cable box. Having that one cable box however allowed me to watch Korean programming from overseas from MBC and KBS and it snowballed from there. So while you may laugh that my reawakening (if you want to call it that) of my Korean identity all started from watching Korean dramas, I found over the years that I learned a lot about Korea, Korean society and the Korean mentality from those programs. While TV and dramas are often over-stylized and fantastical, you can still get what concepts and ideas are important to Koreans and what they value. Since then, my desire to build or mature my Korean identity has grown beyond just watching Korean dramas and listening to K-pop. My desire now is to be more than just a spectator but a participant as well. I want to be able to think Korean, speak Korean, understand the Korean psyche, have experiences that uniquely Korean, and be able to view things from a Korean perspective. It’s hard to explain but while in the company of my relatives, my mom and I would sometimes have conversations about the differences between how “we” thought and “they” thought.

As I still watch a lot of Korean programming to this day from MBC and KBS (and now SBS!), it was only natural for me to go and check out their buildings, even if only it was to take a picture. I did some research and found that a lot of their past and current programming are actually filmed away from Seoul. The historical dramas were shot down in Suwon and there were several drama centers or shooting facilities outside of Seoul also where the more modern family dramas were shot. I really didn’t feel like travelling outside of Seoul so I decided that I’d just stick with the MBC and KBS Buildings located in Yeouido. I also did some research into getting into music recordings like Music Bank and Inkigayo but the process seemed complicated so I gave that up. In researching the two buildings, the KBS one had an exhibition hall that was open to visitors but I couldn’t find anything similar for the MBC one. I just decided that I was going to go and show up at the buildings to catch whatever it was that was there.

I had my usual breakfast which consisted of a banana, yogurt, and cereal and at this point in the vacation, I was waking up a little later than at the very beginning of my vacation. I left late in the morning figuring that I would do some sight seeing and then sometime in between get lunch. I took my usual Line 3 starting at Dongnimmun and transferred to Line 5 at Jongno 3-ga and took that to Yeouinaru Station on Yeouido. I always liked looking out the window whenever I crossed the Hangang River on subway.
When I got to Yeouinaru Station just after 11:00AM, the weather was a little drab. It was cloudy but it meant that it wasn’t as hot as it had been in the days prior. I thought about heading towards the river and taking the ferry along the Hangang first as the Station was located close to the water front. All along the Hangang was a waterfront park with walking and cycling paths and pretty flower beds.

I decided against doing the ferry first because I was really itching to check out MBC and KBS. I saw some buses passing by but didn’t know where they were going and what stop I needed to get off at so I decided to walk south-west to the MBC Building. Though Yeouido has a lot of corporate buildings and offices, there were also many residential condos as well. I remember watching an episode of Infinity Challenge where comedian 박명수 (Park Myeong-Su) revealed he lived in Yeouido. As a result, when I was walking throughout Yeouido I kept thinking (and secretly hoping) that I would run into a celebrity or come across filming for a variety show like Infinity Challenge or 1 Day 2 Nights.

When I got to the MBC Building, it was surprisingly fortified with a heavier security presence than I had expected and you had to show identification to get closer to the building. I asked one of the guards about whether there were tours available but even with my so-so Korean, he had a tough time understanding what I was asking about. In the end, he conveyed that no one without a pass could enter the building so I was just content to take some pictures of the building.

I continued west to go to KBS and came to Yeouido Park which is a long strip of park that goes pretty much all the way from the front to the back of the island. There were corporate workers and residents alike taking strolls along the cushiony walking paths within the park. I had never seen cushiony paths before coming to Seoul. They looked like painted concrete but actually had a nice cushiony bounce to them that was easier on the feet and joints. There was also a school nearby as I saw many kids in uniform congregating in the open area of the park where there was a stage for holding events. This area also had bicycles and inline skates for rent. While walking through the park, I saw a group of people with takeout McDonald’s which got me excited about the notion that there was a McDonald’s nearby. I had wanted to try McDonald’s (the Sausage McMuffin I had at the airport doesn’t count) in Korea as soon as got here but put off going a couple of times already while in Jongno for another day.

I walked through the park and continued West and finally got to the KBS Building. The walk from MBC to KBS was longer than I had expected and my feet were hurting me at this point already in the day. The walks always felt longer than they really were. When I walk around my neighbourhood in Toronto, sometimes I’ll walk for 30-60 minutes and it seems like nothing. The walk from the Subway Station to the KBS Building took about an hour or with short stops here and there but it felt like triple the distance and effort.

There were a couple of KBS Buildings and I headed for the larger one first not knowing where the KBS Exhibition Hall was.

When I got to the entrance and asked for the hall however, he directed me to the other building which was closer to where I had come from. As I approached, I saw the steps where they often shoot the beginning of the variety show 1 Night 2 Days. I never knew it was actually here so it was a nice surprise to come across them. I felt yelling out “1박 2일!” right in front of the steps like 강호동.

Further up the stairs and to the left were several KBS Radio broadcast studios located inside along the front of the building. They had thick glass windows so could observe the activities going on within the studio. I saw a couple of people in there recording but didn’t recognize anyone familiar so I continued on to the KBS Exhibition Hall which is at the very end. There were a couple of cardboard stands for two dramas that I had actually watched, Cinderella’s Sister and Birth of the Rich. Though I’m a big fan of “국민동생”(the nation’s little sister) 문근영(Moon Geun-Young), I had only seen her in movies so Cinderella’s Sister was the first drama of hers I saw.

The admission to The KBS Exhibition Hall is free and there are brochures detailing the hall available in a variety of languages. I went with the expectations that the Hall was going to be more drama-centric but it’s actually more like a museum showcasing the history and all aspects of KBS broadcasting from radio to TV, to news, dramas, sports and more. At the very beginning of the tour course, they had some very old broadcasting equipment on display from the early years of KBS and a studio that you could look into through a glass wall. There wasn’t any activity going on so I wasn’t sure it was an active studio or not. I won’t go through everything I saw in this blog post but I’ll just point out some stuff that caught my eyes.

The Hall is located a few stories up and the stairway acts like a showcase for KBS programming such as 비타민 (Vitamin), which is a funny and educational health show I watch from time to time. It’s currently co-hosted by one of my favourite announcers 전현무 (Jun Hyun-moo) who is so funny because he’s a complete goof and very un-announcer-like. Everyone likes to make fun of him but that’s part of his charm and why he’s so funny. He’s just an easy target.

There was a small section dedicated to all the announcers of KBS. Being a broadcast announcer is a big deal in Korea and is a very desirable position that many want but few get. You have to have that combination of looks and intelligence. Announcers in Korea also host a lot of variety programs so that’s how I’ve come to know some of them and have my favourites as well. It seems like once you become an announcer, you become a jack of all trades for the station. I always thought an announcer just announced the news but Korean announcers do the news, host radio and variety shows and more. Most variety shows hire actors or comedians to act as hosts but it seems like when economic times are tough, that’s when they use more of their announcer staff to host their shows.

There was a news desk setup where you could play the role of announcer in front of a camera. As I mentioned before, there was a section dedicated to sports and they had some memorabilia from past World Cups on display.

While they didn’t have any memorabilia on display from the sets of Korean dramas, they did have a couple of corridors that displayed all the KBS dramas that were produced each year. They had the same thing for their variety shows also, including one hosted by Jun Hyun-Moo. Of course, there was also a long plaque dedicated just to the drama Winter Sonata. In addition to that, they had posters of their currently running dramas and a holographic display area showing characters from some of their traditional historical dramas.

There were several interactive areas intended more for children towards the end. Overall, I think if you are a fan of KBS in general, you may find the area worth checking out. If you are just a fan of Korean dramas however, it will probably disappoint you. Aside from a class of kids, I pretty much had the place all to myself on this day. As I left the Hall, I checked out the Radio studio again through the glass window and saw Jun Hyun-Moo hosting a show. As I mentioned, I am a fan of his so even though I didn’t run into any celebrities while in Yeouido, at least I got to say I saw Jun Hyun-Moo! (which may or may not be a big deal depending on who you ask. ^^). I just found his Twitter page! I can't believe his English name is Larry!

Here are a collection of videos I took at the KBS Exhibition Hall.

Located next door to the KBS Buildings is a strip of restaurants that looked very tempting. I finished my tour of the Hall just before 1PM so I was definitely in the mood for some food. The restaurants were packed and it felt like most of them were staff from nearby KBS. I thought about heading into one of them and I had the feeling that I would probably see someone I recognize but I couldn’t shake the image of those people having McDonald’s early in the day. That’s the power of McDonald’s! When I saw those people eating McDonald’s in Yeouido Park, I made up my mind that today was going to be the day I tried it. My Google Maps showed restaurants like McDonald’s, Lotteria, Burger King, Pizza Hut and so forth so it was always really easy to locate a fast food place if I was in the mood for one. Unfortunately, no matter where I looked on the map for Yeouido, I could not locate a McDonald’s at all. Thinking that the map was probably outdated, I started walking here and there and just ended up getting really frustrated not being able to find it. In the end, I gave up as my feet were aching. Thinking back now, I bet those people I saw eating McDonald’s probably had it delivered to them right there on the spot since Seoul had McDelivery.
No McDonald’s + aching feet = T.T