Jeju Chocolate Museum

Wearing my candy-striped cotton summer dress today makes me think of Chocolate Museum in Jeju. This was another place which I wanted to go with Leo, but dropped due to insufficient time. I'm lucky that Rohit and Tiina gamely went together with me, because Chocolate Museum is so far out to the west side of Jeju so the cab set us back 20,000won from Jungmun area. So expensive! But looking at the map it didn't seem too far, so when I discussed with Tiina later she said that the taxi driver seemed to have taken a longer route.

The Jeju Chocolate Museum is the brainchild of a Korean couple - Han Yae Seok and her husband Ju Jen Uine. Read more here and here.

Entrance of Chocolate Museum

Really really love this place... from the travel brochures hahaha. I imagined it to be a huge, grand place surrounded by acres and acres of green grassland. So I was a little disappointed to see that it was just a compound in a housing area. The wonders of Photoshop........ =_=''' But anyway, from the entrance the building still looked very grand, it looked like a castle moulded from dark chocolate, waiting to be eaten... nomnomnomnomnom...  

 

Entrance fee was not too bad considering the taxi fee we had to pay in order to get here... 4,000won including a cup of hot Americano with a slight hint of chocolate!

There were many "antique" curiosities inside the museum. At the lobby, we were greeted by a knight's suit-of-amour and a "penny-farthing" high-wheeled bicycle. Love it! 

On one wall, there were many miniature models of castles, horses and jostling knights. I really really like miniatures... hope I can buy one and put in on display in my home next time.

The other walls were lined with history of chocolate, how the Aztecs traded cacao bean as currency, and the modern history and development of chocolate in different countries!  

There was also an interesting display of chocolate tins collected from all over the world... my favourite is the Hershey's "I Must Have OREO SANDWICH for Dessert" blue tin!! So nice! And not forgetting the Ghirardelli chocolate tin fashioned after the San Francisco cable car...

   

At one part of the building we could see the chocolate makers busy at work, making little chocolate delights in the factory!And some chocolate creations like the Chocolate Princess, statue, Eiffel Tower... etc.

At the gift shop, we were each given a piece of handmade chocolate to taste... yummmmm. But a box of the chocolates were too expensive to buy @.@... Saw my favourite nutcrackers and lighthouses for sale in the giftshop!

Ahhh this museum really makes me feel like a little kid again... there was a toy train running through a snow village inside a glass-case.

Toy train

The train was carrying cacao beans!

Last but not least, the room which is always Christmas. Felt transported back to Grand Canyon in wintertime, sitting by the cozy fireplace inside the cabin with red ribbons and ornaments strung all over the christmas trees~