Korean DMZ Tour

Guys, I've been to North Korea.  For real.   And by North Korea, I mean the North Korean side of a United Nations building at the South Korean and North Korean border, inside the De-Militarized Zone.  In case you're confused, visit Wikipedia.  Here's what I copied from them:

The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ; Hangul: 한반도 비무장지대; Hanja: 韓半島非武裝地帶) is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. The DMZ is a de-facto border barrier, which runs along the 38th parallel north. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel and the east end lying north of it. It was created as part of the Korean Armistice Agreement between North Korea, the People's Republic of China, and the United Nations Command forces in 1953.  It is 250 kilometres (160 miles) long, approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide and, despite its name, is the most heavily militarized border in the world.

Why did I go?  Because I could and South Korea has made it quite the tourist attraction.  No tourist have ever been harmed, so I thought my chances of making it out alive were pretty good.  Fortunately, I was right.  

 I thought Americans might be the only crazy ones on the tour (maybe I thought this since it is put on by the USO)  but I was wrong.  First, there were buses full of Koreans at each site we went to, including elementary school field trips and senior citizen groups.  There were also people from many other countries. 

It was such a strange experience.  We were so close to arguably the saddest country in this world, but yet I felt completely safe. Huge open and beautiful fields, but if you step a foot in to them, you're a goner, by possibly a land mine, and if not, the sniper will get you.  The most isolated country in the world was right in front of me.  Families have been torn apart.  Many buildings and a beautiful, huge train station have been built, all in the hopes of reunification. But we all know at this point in this war, that's not a realistic expectation.  I had enjoyed my time in Seoul, one of the world's most advanced cities in the world, and I was staring at a nation that was frozen in time.

 We were told that we could only take pictures at certain spots. Even though our tour guide was an American soldier, I wasn't about to test the rules in this area. They were real serious, not like the guys who try to be serious when they check my ID at the Atsugi gate.  They were also friendly.  They were the kind of soldiers you would want working that area.

One of the groups that gives tour is our very own USO.  We had to sign up weeks in advance and then we arrived at their office around 6:30 am to complete paperwork and get our tourist badge.  It took about an hour and a half to get to the area.

Not the best picture, but I took it while riding on the highway.  There are guard stations for miles south of the border, with a couple of armed South Korean soldiers in each of them.  They're overlooking a river, which runs north and south, so it's flowing from North Korea.

This is the gate to get into the South Korean military base.  There's another gate further in, which takes you into the actual DMZ strip.

This is the Joint Security Area visitors center, where we got a brief history of the DMZ, signed our life away and could tour a small museum and buy souvenirs.  We chose to purchase North Korean money.

Here's my waiver.

All of the soldiers wear arm cuffs, including the US soldiers.

And here we are, with North Korea behind us.  If you look just above and to the right of my head, there's a North Korean soldier standing watch.  He checked us out with his binoculars a couple times.  The blue buildings are United Nations buildings.  There are also some silver buildings, which are North Korean.  Our tour guide told us that one of them is called the Recreation Room, which is a totally inappropriate name.  He's not exactly sure what they do in there, but he said that the soldiers often act like children, peeping through the window blinds and making faces at them and the South Korean soldiers on guard.  We were allowed to go in to the building behind me, to the left.  For some reason, we were not allowed to take any pictures of the building we were in.  It was a really nice building that was built to have many rooms to host reuniting families.

No eye contact!  This is the table where all negotiations between the two countries take place.  The table is set as the divider between the two countries.  The left side of him is South Korea, to his right is North. 

Here is a better view of the room. 

We crossed over the table and this is us technically in North Korean territory. 

This is a map of the DMZ area.  We were at the red dots.

Dorasan Station, the northern-most train station in South Korea.  One more stop takes you to North Korea, but of course that's not happening right now.  We went inside, where there are a couple museum-like pieces, a huge ticket counter, and a giant Customs room.  We ate lunch at a place across the parking lot from here.

The back side of this building is all windows, which is looking out at the DMZ.  No pictures were allowed inside.  There was a place outside, to the left of the building, where we could take pictures, but we had to stand 15 feet back from the edge. 

This is what 15 feet from the edge looks like.  No one goes in that empty space, so it has actually become a flourishing nature reserve.  We paid to use the binoculars.   You could see the factory that has been in the news (South Koreans work there).  Interesting facts: South Korea put up a flagpole on their side of the DMZ.  In retaliation,  North Korea built a 525 feet tall flag pole that waves a 595 pound flag.  It's ridiculous.  At the time it was built, it was the tallest in the world, but it's down to #3 already.     Also, the tour guide told us that North Korea built a really tall building with something like 20 floors.  However, they don't have enough energy to even operate an elevator, so they have to use the stairs. And one more:  You can't tell a lot here, but the mountains do not have trees.  In the height of the ongoing famine, the 1990s, all trees were cut down, either for firewood or food (people resorted to eating bark.)  This has put a major toll on the environment and they claim to be working hard to restore it.

Here you can see where we took that picture, behind the yellow line.

North Korea has tried to sneak-attack South Korea by building underground tunnels.  Since 1974, there have been 4 tunnels discovered.  North Korea claimed that they were being used for mining coal, but no coal was found in or around the tunnel.  We were able to go into the 3rd tunnel that was found, but without a camera.  It wasn't anything too terribly interesting.  It was a long walk down a slanted walkway and an even longer walk back up.   The tunnels are 1,150 feet below ground and were discovered in 1978 following a tip from a North Korea defector.   We had to hunch down to walk through the tunnel and it was a bit wet. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so I took a picture of this inspirational artwork outside of it instead.

South Korea has really done well at turning their lemons into lemonade.  They have made a terrible spot a tourist attraction, complete with some mascots.  Our tour didn't include it, but for the old people, you could ride down to the tunnels, not walk!  When I first saw this, I honestly thought for a second, "OMG, they made roller coaster out of this!", because it very strongly resembled a small roller coaster car.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the DMZ.  My goal for this entry was for it to be the most interesting and memorable social studies/history lesson you've even had.  How'd I do???