Seoul Arts Centre

Lonely Planet review

This sprawling arts complex has a circular opera house, with a roof shaped like a Korean nobleman's hat, which also houses the 700-seat Towol Theatre and the smaller Jayu Theatre. The national ballet and opera companies are based here. Music House consists of a large concert hall and a smaller recital hall and is home to the national choir, the Korea and Seoul symphony orchestras and the Seoul performing arts company.

Also part of the complex is the Korea Film Archives, with a cinema that sometimes shows programmes of classic Korean movies with English subtitles. The archives has film magazines from around the world and a library of books, videos and DVDs. Upstairs is an arts library with more books, CDs, videos and DVDs.

Clustered together next door is the National Centre for Korean Traditional Performing Arts and the Museum of Korean Traditional Music, which exhibits unusual musical instruments including eo (a wooden tiger with 27 indentations on its back that is played by passing a stick over them), chuk (a wooden box that is hit with a stick), pyeongyeong (16 stone chimes) and pyeonjong (16 bronze bells). Mainly Korean instruments are on show at this old-fashioned museum.