If you thought the title of this post has a grammatical error, let me correct you outright: that’s really how the name is written. Womans. Not Woman’s or Women’s. It’s really Ewha Womans University. I, too, did a double-take when I first saw it, and took several clicks and readings to be enlightened.
And what was I doing at a University area on a travel holiday, you ask? Beats me, but if you think about it, many universities and learning institutions the world over are actually sightseeing-worthy. South Korea, somehow, was one of those countries that seemed to unconsciously (or consciously) market their universities as tourism spots as well.
Getting to Ewha Womans University isn’t all that difficult, since it has its own station on the city’s metro. And depending on which exit you’d take, you’d surface to a neighborhood that is distinctly young and trendy, yet retaining an air of seriousness to it, perhaps brought about by the fact that there is a learning institution – an iconic one, at that – close by.
Or maybe I just got that vibe because it was barely 9am when we got there, and there weren’t a lot of people around just yet. Come to think of it, I’m not quite sure what time most classes start at the University.
One of the reasons that this place is frequented by tourists and locals alike, even if they aren’t students, is the Shopping Street.
Ewha Womans University Shopping Street
The Ewha Womans University Shopping Street is one of the most popular shopping districts in Seoul, when it comes to trendy clothing/apparel, fashion items and accessories, coffee shops and dining places that practically scream “young (and wild and free)”.
I think it’s right up there with Hongdae and Myeongdong when it comes to being a shopping destination.
I spotted a few Korean brands while strolling the maze of streets. Like this Lotte el CUBE compact mall, featuring LINE Friends merchandise.
Mind, this was before BT21 was developed. If BT21 had already blown up when I was there, you’d probably find me entering every LINE Friends store, I’m not kidding. (So you’d probably guess one of my destinations once I get to Harajuku next month, eh? *evil grin*)
Although not as densely packed as Myeongdong, Ewha Womans University Shopping District also has its fair share of Korean beauty road shops, such as too cool for school, Etude House, Missha, and labiotte, to name a few. I’d have to say there were a lot of Etude House stores, with their cute and girly and pink storefronts in keeping with the general atmosphere of the place.
We did enter several boutiques and it was noticeable how most of them were catered to young women and their fashion styles.
I think if you decide to stroll and explore the entirety of the place, you’d have quite the leg workout, since some parts had gentle uphill and downhill slopes. I think it actually added to the charm of the place, so the shopping street does not look like your usual urban area with lines and lines of commercial stores.
One thing I notice is how the main clientele of majority of the coffee shops around Seoul is composed of young people, so I wasn’t at all surprised to find a wide selection of coffee shops and cafes – from the concept to the regular ones – dotting each street.
In fact, there were more and more of them as we got closer and closer to the University.
And finally, the Ewha Womans University is right in front of us.
In We Go~!
At first we weren’t quite sure if we could just go in, as we weren’t exactly students of the place. So while buying some milk tea, we not so surreptitiously observed how other people were going about it.
And it seemed like anyone was free to go in. So we risked it, thinking we can turn right back around if someone blew a whistle or a guard in uniform came at us brandishing a long stick.
You know how most main gates of universities (at least the ones I’ve seen and been to) are quite intimidating? Surprisingly, this one I found a bit welcoming. No tall walls or imposing metal gates with locks. It was just wide open.
That small glassed-in area on the right of the main gate is the Ewha Wellness Center.
We took a peek from outside of the Ewha Wellness Center, and it looked like a lounge where you can sit down and rest, with some reading materials and souvenir items which, I presume, are for sale. There was also a stair leading somewhere under ground level, so if there is a cafe down there, just… wow.
A bit of a background…
Ewha Womans University is, without a doubt, one of the more well-known and prestigious universities in South Korea. A high level of esteem comes with being a graduate of this institution.
And, just as the name implies, this is a female institute, the first of its kind in South Korea. In fact, it is currently the largest female educational institute in the world.
The Ewha Womans University was founded in 1886 by an American missionary, Mary F. Scranton, and the name was given by then King Gojong. Its beginnings were quite rocky, made even unstable during the tumultuous period of Japanese occupation in South Korea. So it was only in 1945, when the Japanese regime ended, that the Ewha Womans University was officially established.
Why Womans, though?
This turns out to be intentional.
The founders of Ewha wanted to promote the idea that every woman must be respected. However, alumna or graduates of the school are deemed to be special, and must not be lumped with others under the label “women”. By using “womans”, the fact that their students are different from the generic “women” is emphasized.
Take a look at the layout of the university, though. I’m not quite sure what shape that is, like a triangle with curved edges. (You can check out a more detailed campus map here.)
I’m not quite sure, but I think non-students are allowed only up to certain areas of the university. We actually did not think of exploring further than the main area. We didn’t want to risk it.
I suppose this is like the main quadrangle of the campus. I mean, this is also where we saw most of the other tourists.
And yeah, you can easily distinguish the students from the tourists. Just look at who’s toting a camera or even a phone camera to take photos. That’s a dead giveaway.
That tall building with a pointed roof is the Welch-Ryang Auditorium. On the lower right is the Clara Hall (Graduate School Building II). I thought it was a chapel or something, but actually the 3-story stone building, with its gothic architectural style, is currently an annex of the Graduate School and used as a Center for Women’s Leadership Development.
That tall building (you can’t miss it) is International Education Building, which is also dubbed as the Ewha Color Design Research Institute. It actually has two tower levels from the ground then 14 higher levels atop it. It focuses on matters involving international education and design, that’s why it has rooms such as Interpretation Rooms and Translation Rooms.
I suppose this is frequented by those foreign/international students that attend Ewha.
The lower structure beside it is the Centennial Museum, which contains several halls and galleries featuring cultural artifacts and contemporary art. We didn’t go inside, though.
And this, right here, is the ECC, or the Ewha Campus Complex.
From this vantage point, it looks just like a space under a bridge, (or a boulevard if you’re not completely sold on the bridge idea) put in there for aesthetic reasons, because heaven knows what goes on in the minds of architectural geniuses.
But not, that actually has a purpose.
The ECC is actually an underground structure. Those on the sides? They are actually doors that lead inside the Campus Complex. It is already quite wide, spanning 66,000 square meters floor area.
But here’s something more amazing: when you enter the complex, there are actually 6 levels below the ground. This makes ECC the largest underground campus in South Korea.
It appears that Ewha held an international competition, inviting interested people to come up with a design for the ECC. This was the winning design and it was by French architect and urban planner Dominique Perreault, who designed the French National Library in Paris and the Vienna DC Towers in Austria, to name a notable few.
Think of the ECC as a building, with the gardens up top as its roof top. Apparently, the lower 2 levels are underground parking lots. From what I’ve read, this basement with its 6 levels contain practically everything, a library, a bookstore, lecture rooms, and cultural facilities. But get this: it also has a gym, a movie theater, numerous coffee shops….
Man, it would be so cool to be able to go in there~~~
The landscaping is not overpowering, I noticed. I think they stuck to a simpler color theme: the greens of the plants and the monochrome of the stone and the stone buildings. No flashy colored buildings that I saw. Either they were in stone (grey) or a dirty shade of white, if that makes sense.
Interestingly, the buildings seem to indicate the courses or degrees on offer, like the usual ones: Graduate School, Education, Law, Engineering, Social Sciences, Humanities. And some other interesting ones: Human Ecology Building, buildings for Pharmaceutical Science, Music, Arts & Design, Science, Nursing Science, Physical Education.
They even have Ewha Kindergarten, Elementary, High School, Junior High School…
According to the VisitKorea website, Ewha Womans University has 15 graduate schools, 11 colleges with a total of 67 departments, and a number of research institutes.
The Welch-Ryang Auditorium is where students and even artists perform, or publish and present their researches. It has 3,345 seats and, apparently, the stage is wide enough to accommodate 150 performers at a time.
At first, I thought it was a church or something. Tee-hee. That cross up there threw me off a bit.
By the way, the American missionary founder was from the Methodist Episcopal Church.
From here, we went back down the stairs and debated against moving further into the pathways where we saw students walk to. We figured they may be off-limits to non-students, and we didn’t want to risk being chased out.
All in all, I was satisfied with this brief peek into one of the universities I only heard about in Korean news and TV shows. I think what impressed me the most, on a superficial level, is how they utilized this modest space into an educational institute that can accommodate so many schools/colleges/departments.
To get to the Ewha Womans University – whether to check out the campus itself or just check out what’s up at the Shopping Street – take Subway Line 2 to the Ewha Womans University Station, then take either Exit #1 or #2.
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