DMZ Trip!

Last Sunday Cassy and I went on a trip to the DMZ with a company that sponsors different adventure trips around Korea for foreigners! Just in case you weren't aware, the DMZ stands for the Demilitarized Zone and is the formal land line that separates North and South Korea. And it only took us 35 minutes to get there by bus, so that made me even more aware of how close we actually are to North Korea! The trip was an all day event, and we made a few different stops throughout the day.

The first place they took us to was Freedom Bridge. That was where the political prisoners from the Korean war were exchanged in 1953:

This is at the edge of the bridge and as far as you can go; on the other side is a guard tower:

People who wish for the unification of Korea write messages on the ribbons and tie them all around Freedom Bridge:

This is also the place where people whose families are still in North Korea come to celebrate Chuseok (a Korean Thanksgiving type Holiday) since they are separated with their families and can't be with them.

They have a ton of really beautiful monuments there also honoring those who fought in the Korean war. This is the one for the United States:

Each blue triangle on the inside has a different picture for the four different branches of the United States Armed Forces:

While we were here we were able to buy some North Korean money before we got back on the bus and headed to the next place!

We had lunch next as a group at a traditional Korean restaurant. Traditional means we had to take off our shoes at the entrance and sit on the floor! It was pretty good, your basic rice, tofu soup, and 10 different side dishes.

After lunch we drove through Daeseong-dong (also sometimes spelled with a T), known as the "Peace Village" and is 1 of 2 of the villages located within the DMZ (the other one being a North Korean village). There are around 200 people living there, and in order to live there you must be a direct descendant of one of the original villagers. Even though they are exempt from taxes and military duty, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to live there!

There also used to be a very large US Army base that's now abandoned that we drove by on our way to the next place. They were moved south of Seoul a few years ago but after the war and up until then they were basically a "Human Fence". Meaning that if North Korea ever did invade the South than they'd immediately try to defeat and kill those US soldiers stationed at that base, and America would immediately enter into war against the North.

We headed towards the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel next. After the war, 4 different tunnels going from North Korea into South Korea towards Seoul (S.Korea's capital) were discovered. All were discovered by accident so they're not sure if they've found all of them or if there are more out there! The 3rd tunnel was discovered in 1973 and has the capacity to send 10,000 armed troops and vehicles into South Korea within an hour! To go into the tunnel you have to wear a hard hat and walk down a 300 meter path that is very steep. And then you walk through the tunnel that was carved out. We weren't allowed to take pictures down there so I don't have any of this part of the trip. After you walk through the tunnels, you have to walk back up that ridiculously steep path back up to ground level. Cassy and I were drenched in sweat by the time we made it back up!
Oh I almost forgot, some South-East Asian woman asked to take her picture with me at this point (well not really asked but mimed to. I get this a lot actually, I'm not really sure why since I saw plenty of other light haired, blue eyed, light skinned people around, but maybe I'm just the most approachable or something!) And then I had a man on a Chinese tour group come up to me and start practicing his english with me extremely loudly. Like everyone in the area stopped and stared at us. And all this time Cassy is standing next to me, but does anyone come up to her? No! Only I get to be in random photos and be yelled at in english by strangers. Oh well!

Ok anyways, back to the DMZ trip, at this same place was a museum and we also watched a short video about it's history. By the way, this whole time on the bus ride up and the areas surrounding these tourist sites are fences and warnings about land mines! Here's some pics from this area:

 A monument about uniting North and South Korea with the North map on one side and the South on the other with people pushing them together:

Museum pictures:

Me with random totem poles:

Next we headed to the Dora Observation Platform, which is where you normally could get a good look at the North Korean village in the DMZ, but since it was so foggy that day we couldn't see much. You also can only take pictures within this yellow box they're painted on the platform. Cassy apparently didn't hear the 5 times they told us about it and still took pictures from closer on the platform, she must of been out of it.

So as you can see, the visibility that day was really bad so we couldn't see much of anything.

There were a lot of signs about the unification of the Koreas throughout the trip, but our guide said actually only about 50% of South Koreans want to be unified, they're afraid of what it would do to the economy of their country.

The last place we visited was Dorsan Station, which is the last train station in the South (or the first one towards the north as they like to say once Korea is unified)

 This shows the map of where the train stations are and where it would go into the north. if the Koreas are ever unified, you'd be able to take this train all the way into Europe:

 Me with one of the guards, I look slightly nervous:

You used to be able to stamp your passport here, but about a year ago they stopped doing that since it wasn't a true border crossing, so you you buy a train ticket for 50 cents and stamp that. Somehow Cassy picked up the stamp on the wrong side and stamped her hand...

Cassy infront of the train that actually does carry some workers into the DMZ to work at a factory that also has North Koreans workers:

So that's my DMZ Trip! It was so interesting and maybe when it's nicer day I'll do it again come summer. Our guide said that it's possible in May they may open a North Korean village that people can visit! So since I'll still be here maybe I'll be able to go! We'll see!

I know this was a very long post and I actually have many more pictures on my Picasa web albums about it!