Jeju Pt 2: The Chocolate Museum

I had high expectations

Great Expectations

The Chocolate Museum in Seogwipo, Jeju is the second largest chocolate museum in the world (the largest is the Cologne Chocolate Museum in Germany). The building looks like an ancient castle made of chocolate (it’s actually volcanic rock from Jeju). I had high hopes for this museum from the beginning. It was named as one of the ‘World’s Top 10 Best Chocolate Museums in the World’ by the members and editors of VirtualTourist.com and it is the only chocolate museum found in Asia. 

With our free coffee with purchase of ticket

Awesomeness…

What we found inside was a strange conglomeration of things. Yes, they explained the production method of chocolate and its movement through history. That is what excited me the most, seeing some Mayan history in a random Korean museum. Aka my ancestors. Half of them anyways.  

A bit of my culture

Cacao bean

So apart from this cool intro to the history of cacao in early civilizations, you also get a look at the ‘Collection Square’. The ‘Collection Square’ features a wide array of chocolate cases and other items that Mr. Han Ye-seok, the museum director, has collected from around the world. 

Heading towards the Museum store, you are stopped by the glass walls that let you see into the kitchen, where a chocolate artisan is creating these awesome little truffles that make you want to melt. 

 

Choco Facts:

Weirdness..

And then there was the Christmas room. Say what? Some portions of this trip were just plain random. Like this room for example, followed by the strange items they sold in the shop such as lighthouse figures and nutcrackers. Hmm. For a chocolate shop, it really lacked the creativity to really draw the conclusion to a powerful close. The expensive truffles weren’t worth it. We left wishing it was more like a cafe – with offers of decadent chocolate cakes and creamy chocolate drinks. Unfortunately, we were left to fend for ourselves. Just look at those faces! We were like pitiful children, left with no dessert after dinner.

Gorging on random donuts from a random Korean bakery