Paju Pt 1: Heyri Art Valley

My friend and I traveled out of Seoul on our typical Saturday and visited Paju. In particular, we went to Heyri Art Valley, which is near the Paju English Village. Heyri Art Valley is what I call an urban village, what with all the interesting architecture of each building. Each building is an exhibit itself, ranging from art studios to museums.



Entrance into the village is free but for every exhibit that you enter, you have to pay the entrance fee that ranges from KRW3,000 to KRW8,000. Maps are available at Gate 1 of the valley. Unfortunately, you have to purchase the maps for KRW500 and they are only available in Korean language.
Directions: At Line 2 or 6 Hapjeong Station exit 2, take Bus 2200 to Heryi Art Valley Gate 1.

Purple Exhibit

English Village in the background

The first building we visited was Hyundai building. We went to Cafe Between for lunch and had pizza there. The pizza was light with thin strips of meat, but the olive made the pizza sour. I'm not sure if it's the mushrooms or the olives, but in my experience it's usually the olives. Don't forget to ask for an English menu! We were somewhat flustered when they presented us with the English menu 10 minutes after we were struggling with the ingredients description.

Green=Plain, White=Cream, Red=Tomato

Pizza Prosciutto e Funghi KRW22,000

After that, we headed to the nearby book cafe and book museum. The cafe is in the lower basement of the building while the museum is on the B1 and higher levels of the building. You basically see the first few editions of English literary works by Milton, Chaucer, etc. You'll also see the exhibit of illustrator William Morris's designs. He had designed the decoration for the original prints. The cafe is eye opening with the levels of books. At the entrance of the cafe is the multi-leveled bookstore that sells books in English and Korean, and souvenirs. I bought things like magnetic bookmarks with a hangeul stamp, charm bookmarks, DIY books, and oriental print cards.

Hangil Book Museum KRW5,000

Seen in "We Got Married Global"

After that, we headed to the chocolate design building by Jubilee Chocolatier. We couldn't find the chocolate design floor (=.=') so we just bought their chocolates. Boxes are available in 6, 9, 12, and 20. One truffle costs KRW2,000. I recommend the espresso and the dark swirl. I LOVE chocolate-orange flavour, but I couldn't taste it in the two that I bought.

KRW18,000

We then crossed the road and headed to Gallery White Block. It's famous for some reason I know not. But I love the art in the second room. They were like random strokes with no definition, but the tiny strokes came together to present a vividly painted picture. Pretty paradoxical, but that's what amazes us. The other rooms were weird.

KRW5,000

Stepping back to see the beauty

White Cafe

We walked down to the trick art museum and looked at some illusions. They have similar trick concepts to the other branches in Jeju and Seoul, just different pictures for KRW6,000.

the iconic angel's wings

We didn't forget to visit the Museum of Korean Modern History which cost KRW6,000. This is an exhibit for you to revisit the past (maybe the 50's). This museum actually reflects Korea's years of westernisation. Warning: this museum may be claustrophobic especially for tall people. I'm 150cm, and I almost hit my head.

Look at those old cameras!
Kodak, Canon and many more

That's all that we visited. Just a reminder: most of the exhibits close between 6pm-7pm so go early if you want to visit many.