Cheongju Early Printing Museum, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea

4Chantel 5:00 PM Jun 24, 2013

Jikji a Must place to visit
This is a palce to be, and its free. Not many people know that the first metal printing press was not develop in Europe but in Korea. Printed during the Goryeo Dynasty in 1377 it is the world's oldest extant book printed with movable metal type. There is a room where you can view a video about the Jikji, they story was someone orders 500 book copy's and at that time you can't print that much at a certain time frame so they made a metal printing press so that they can finish the order on time. until know no one knows where is the 500 copies of the Jikji, but there is one copy guven to The first French ambassador to Korea, and when he passed away it was actuon to this guy and later donated it to the National Museum of France. so that makes it 499 Lost copies. Sadly this mesum does not have the copy of the Jikji but a replica but they dont display it, the lady at the front was so kind enough and showed us the jikji book. this musum is nice, you can push the botton, and you can see how they make the metal printing press (the procces) and some other atricats too. at the end of the musum you can print you're own Jikji using tradional paper which you buy for less that 500 won, there is a lady that will assit you. Outside the museum there is the temple, and that temple is where the Jikji was made. I would recomed this meuseum for people that are in Cheongju, just spend 1.5-2 hours of you're time and you will be glad you came

4Lance D 5:00 PM Aug 11, 2015

Great Rainy Afternoon Activity
The early printing museum is a great rainy afternoon activity. There is English labels on most exhibits and they have the oldest movable style printing press of a book that is still in print. It's interesting and free.