DMZ!!

A month or so ago my lovely coworker told me about this tour of the DMZ she was going on with a group called "While in Korea."  Anriette and I have really been wanting to go to the DMZ but it's kind of difficult and very expensive usually to go there if you actually want to see anything worthwhile.  It's surprisingly complicated, you have to send off your passport and stuff and get on a list and cleared and everything, which seemed a little bit silly for going on your own and maybe not being able to get anywhere.  We read about this tour and learned that they were going to do all of our clearances for us and take us to a bunch of different places including places that we could get some really awesome souvenirs and it was actually going to cost very little, after we got ourselves to Seoul.

So, over the passing weeks we made plans, got cleared, and decided that Sile, her boyfriend Jim, her friend and her boyfriend, her sister, and Annie and I would meet at the train station at 10 Friday night, take the six or so hour overnight train to Seoul, and then meet up with our group at our bus at 7:15am.

After a long night on the train, we finally arrived in Seoul.  10:15 to 6am.

KTX station.  It felt like deja vu being in this place.  It had been forever.

How it looks from the outside.  Last time I was here there was snow.

Jim and Sile are at the front, part of our sleepy gang.

 We slept as well as we could on the train but we were pretty zombie-fied by the time we got to Seoul.  We sleepily ate Burger King in the KTX station and waited for the subway to open.

Terribly complicated subway.

Good morning, Anriette!

Jim (sleep walking) and Sile, my lovely co worker.

 We worked our way through the subways and came out at our meeting point with a few minutes to spare.  Our bus was waiting for us, so we got on for our trip to the border, which was supposed to be about 45 minutes or so.  There were about 40 people on our tour.

Our first glimpse of North Korea, from the bus.

This was our sweet tour guide.  He was very interesting and at this point was in the middle of  a speech about North and South Korea and what we were about to see, and I tried SO hard to stay awake so that I would know what was going on but I actually died so Anriette had to fill me in.

Our first stop was the Peace Bell, and the Freedom Bridge.  This is the site of the bridge and memorial of, if I understood correctly, the families that were divided never to see each other again when the country was divided. 

Sile and Jim next to the Peace Bell

The actual bell.

Anriette, Jim, and Sile braving the rain.

Cheers.

Obviously, this was a dare.

There were thousands of ribbons all with notes wishing for the reunification of North and South Korea, and notes for the families that were divided.

And old picture of the bridge.

Notes on a fence that separates North and South Korea, right on the DMZ.

The bullet-ridden train that carted ammunition and troops to the front lines during the Korean War.

A famous symbol of the war.

This is a wall on the Freedom Bridge.  The wall is covered with loving and supportive notes from all over the world, cards, and even name badges that have been hanging there for years.

We didn't have a long time here, but it was really interesting reading how people from everywhere were affected by being here.

After the Freedom Bridge we headed off to our next destination, the first of two tunnels, at around 9am.

Our first checkpoint, where someone actually had to get on the bus and check us out.  He told us to try and scare us, but he didn't. . .however, he did get back on the bus to tell us not to take these pictures that Annie took. . .and that was a little bit scary.  Mostly funny, but a little scary :-)

 This was the first tunnel we were in.  We were absolutely not allowed to take pictures.  But, obviously we did.  But they weren't totally awesome.

Jim and I in the tunnel.

The tunnel.  This was supposed to be a way to break into South Korea and blow up Seoul.

Annie, Jim and I in the tunnel.  Pretty interesting stuff.

 After the tunnel we went to a KTX train station that runs from the DMZ into Pyeongyang, the capital of North Korea.  This railway is supposed to go through North Korea, cross Russia and eventually go all the way to Europe.  The station is has a train that brings South Korean workers into a North Korean facility that South Korea built to help North Korean economy and apparently now employs over 1000 North and South  Koreans.  This is also the place where we could buy a souvenir ticket to North Korea and get our passports stamped for North Korea. :-)

Guards watching the gate to make sure no one actually tries to use the railroad.

Most of our gang, Sile, Jim, Kate, Annie and I.

A guard trying hard not to smile.

 After the train station we went to our second tunnel.  This one had fewer people in it, so it was a little easier to take our illegal photos.
The tunnel was after our lunch break.  It was amazing how cold it suddenly got, we were getting a little weary from the rain and the cold, but it was lovely to have some nice hot bibimbap and a little place to rest off of the bus.
But, onto the tunnel!

Another attempt to break into South Korea.

Cheers!

I think this one we actually didn't touch. . .

Way, way, way underground.

Annie and I standing outside tunnel #2.

We went to another place that had an observation deck.  And we were absolutely not allowed to mess with this tank:

We opted out of the long hike in the rain to reach the top of the mountain and the deck and instead bought monorail tickets to a very full mono rail.

We got to the top and put some coins in the binoculars trying to see something fantastic.   Of course we did, but I think the rain obstructed our view of hopeful refugees fleeing across this border on this particular section of land.

The DMZ

We watched a movie here about tunnels and tales of invasion attempts and it was pretty awesome :-)

Guard towers watching North Korea.

North Korean landscape.

:-)

After the observatory we were getting pretty sleepy, and it was very cold and rainy and we were all worn out.  We went to one more place, a memorial, and there was a sweet soldier there who had his whole speech memorized, the whole entire tour memorized, in English but otherwise didn't speak a word.  Poor guy was so nervous, but he did a really nice job, especially since he was dragging soggy, exhausted foreigners all over the memorial grounds behind him.

Waiting for a tour. :-)

Our last stop.

After we left our last place, we all loaded up on the bus.  Our tour guide bought a bottle of North Korean wine and shared it with us, and that really helped warm us up and put us in comas for the couple of hour ride back to Seoul.

We had planned on staying in Seoul for the weekend and just making a big thing of it, but our whole group was so exhausted we went straight to the KTX station and bought tickets back to Ulsan and fell instantly asleep once we hit our doorsteps.

It was a great trip.  It would be cool to do it once again when it wasn't raining but that was definitely on all of our lists, and thanks to Sile and our really cool tour guide, we all finally got to see it :-)

Thanks for reading.