Anyway, because of sensitivities between North Korea and pretty much everyone else in the world, I'm not sure which of the pictures I took I can or cannot post up on the blog. Additionally, there were a lot of spots on the tour where we could not take pictures. I am replacing them with artwork by Mia and me. I hope you enjoy those.
Anyway, I would say that we had to wake up super early for this tour (which we did), but I can't complain about a 5:30 wake up call when we have to be leaving here at 4 am on Sunday for our tour then. In some fitting coincidence, they were playing this special on the fall of the Berlin wall on TV as I was asleep on the couch waiting for everyone else to get ready. We got to the USO office around 7:00. The tour didn't start until 7:30, so we hung out on the super comfortable couches in the USO office.
I slept for most of the trip out to Panmunjeom. I think I woke up to tell the tour guide that I wanted bibimbap and was clapping in my sleep when he had everyone on the bus clap. I don't remember what the context, just that I was probably grumbling about sleep when I was doing it.
We were scheduled to make it to the base by 9:30 for a debriefing, but actually got there fairly early. We had a short break and then made it into Panmunjeom. During the debrief, one of the first things that they had us do was sign this paper talking about how dangerous it would be to do just about anything when we were at the JSA. For a moment, I appreciated more the fact that we didn't make it out there with Andrew. World War III might have started had he come. (I kid and actually wish we could have done the tour back then because it was really cool.) The rest of the debrief was a history of the whole political situation.
After the debrief and the signing away of our lives, we all got onto special military buses for the tour. On the tour we got to see the most dangerous golf course in the world. I drew a picture of it and forgot to upload that picture. Am too lazy to do it now. It's essentially the one hole golf course in Panmunjeom that was at some point (and may still be) surrounded by land mines. I didn't realize we could take pictures at that point in the tour. Sad.
We saw a couple of other things, including fences that have rocks on them so the guards know if someone's been tampering with the fence. There were also a lot of signs that read "mines." The whole tour was kind of intense.
(this obviously isn't the actual fence. we weren't allowed to take pictures of that. this was a replica that we could take pictures of later on in the trip. i imagine you get the picture.)
The first stop that we got off at was the Joint Security Area. They took us inside the conference room. Half of the room is in South Korea and the other half is in North Korea. Thus, we were technically in North Korea for those five minutes that we were in the room. Unless things get better, I think that might be the closest to being in the other half of Korea I'll ever be, so I'm just going to take what I can get. It was also kind of intimidating being in there. We were told we could take pictures with the South Korean guards, but there were all these restrictions and things about if we crossed some line we would be "put back where we came from."
I wasn't going to post this, but this is one awkward picture next to one of the guards. You can tell we were too afraid to get too close.
Because the USO tour had two buses, we had to wait outside while the other tour bus got to see the inside of the conference room. It started raining around this time too. This was probably the most terrifying part of the entire tour because we could see the North Korean guards watching us with the binoculars. I got some pictures and then we all hid from the rain. This might be the most serious you've ever seen me, Mia and James. I'm sorry to those of you guys who missed this rare and epic moment.
We got back on the buses shortly after that. They showed us a few more things from the bus and then left us off at the souvenir shop, where we bought a lot of stuff in the short amount of time that they gave us. They were selling Ray Bans aviators for super cheap there. We got one for James because he really wanted one. We regret not getting more.
Our next stop was lunch. Bibimbap. Yum. James and Mia also bought chocolate.
The next stop on the tour was to the top of Dora Mountain. On a clearer day, you've got a very beautiful view of North Korea from the mountain. It was raining pretty hard the day of our tour, however. Because the streets are narrow and windy, this led to an interesting trip up the mountain. It was wet and rainy and there were signs on the steep drops that warned about mines. Because I don't think we were supposed to take pictures, it can best be described by this drawing Mia did:
You could still see things from the mountain, but you had to squint your eyes and tilt your head left a little to do it. Now, you can't take pictures from the edge of the viewing area. There's a marked line that tells you where you can't take pictures.
Now, I tried to get a picture from behind the photo line. On a clear day, what you can see from the viewing point is:
Because it was a rainy and foggy day, however, this is all you could really see from the observation point:
Yeah. At that point, I wasn't sure if I would have prefered the super hot weather from Sunday for the DMZ tour or the rainy day we ended up with. I think the next stop answered our questoin for us.
The next and final stop on the tour was the 3rd tunnel. They stopped us at the tunnel museum first, where we got a brief history on the tunnels form our tour guide and from the information they had in the museum. I think this was mostly intended to prevent the tunnels from getting too crowded from tour groups.
After a while, it was our turn to go to the tunnels. Now it was pouring rain at this point, so although the entrance was across the parking lot, they had us get into the bus so that we wouldn't get too wet. While a little wasteful environmentally, this was a very nice and much appreciated gesture on their part. However, because they had us load into bus #1 instead of our designated bus #2, the entire group kind of went crazy and complained about being in the wrong bus. Some even decided that this was Bus #2's attack on Bus #1. I don't know. People are weird.
The tunnel was another intresting trip. You should read about these tunnels on wiki because it's an interesting read. To get to the bottom, you have to hike down about 350 meters of steep incline. You have to wear hard hats to go down to the tunnel. I'm glad they gave us the hard hats because I probably would have had a serious concussion from the amount of times that I ended up hitting my head on the top of the tunnel during our trek through it. It was kind of terrifying to go through the tunnels because there's always that deep feeling that something might happen while you're down there. It's a good thing none of us were claustrophobic, though. That would not have ended well. No pictures are allowed inside, so here's my artistic depiction of it.
Harder than that walk down, of course, is the trek back up the incline. It was a good calf workout and about a quarter through I promised not to complain about the hills at Yonsei for the next day or so. James actually ran up halfway. I don't know why. He also went back down to push up Umma. How cute.
This was the moment that we were glad for the rainy weather that day because going back outsid was super refreshing. I thought it'd be fitting to also take a Shawshank Redemption-esque picture of James dancing in the rain after we made it out of the tunnels.
We were so tired afterwards.
We watched some video on the history of the DMZ and the tunnels afterwards. Then, we headed back to the bus and back to Seoul. I passed on this ride as well. Woke up in Seoul to the tour guide telling the bus about Yonsei University. I briefly felt bad for skipping class until I remembered how cool the tour was. After we got back to the USO office and went to the bathroom, it was raining very hard. We also had one umbrella and were dressed for warm, not wet and cold weather.
This is our final drawing inspired by the DMZ tour (which I now recommend as a must for a trip to Korea). We were just being goofy and making fun of all of the signs for mines that we saw, but Mia and I are also convinced that it holds some deeper meaning beyond our stupidity. Analyze away.
Anyway, because we were in the area, we decided to take a short trip to Itaewon. Because Itaewon is close to the military base, it's one of the most US-influenced areas of Seoul that I've been to. Also, because they cater to Americans it's also a good place to find bigger clothes and shoes. Usually there are a lot of markets open, but I think a lot of it was closed due to the heavy rains. Also, most of the clothes there were either Ed Hardy knock offs or ajima clothes. Not too impressed. I think the selection was a lot cooler when I was there two years ago.
We did make a stop at Burger King because James was having serious cravings for a burger that they serve in the States. Umma and Mia both tried their bulkogi burger. I tried some burger that had giant chunks of garlic in it.
It didn't take us too long to give up on Itaewon. We headed back shortly afterwards. Almost made it all the way back, but decided to stop by the World Cup Stadium because we wanted swim caps so we could actually use the pool here. I'd never actually paid attention to the stop before, but apparently the whole station is full of giant pictures of soccer players. Fitting I guess because the World Cup was there and all.
Our short trip to get swim caps actually became long because we got clothes for Halmony as well. We eventually did make it home. Mia and I rushed and got ready, only to find out that the swimming pool is closed on Tuesdays. It was sad, but we did get to take goofy swim cap pictures. We ate leftovers the night before and took it easy for the rest of the night instead. After a day of essentially swimming our way around Seoul, you'd think we wouldn't be interested in swimming anyway.
That is about it for the day. It was a long one, but it was a lot of fun and I really regret not going on that tour with Gianni and Andrew. I guess we didn't have a choice really that time as the tour was completely booked when we were able to do it. Oh well.
I think I do have an angsty James picture, but I am going to have to not post a James picture today. You see, the DMZ houses a wide variety of animal life, which they are very proud of. Among these animals are RIVER OTTERS.
Therefore, Oppa, it is up to you to show this picture to Bruce.
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