Pictures:
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| DMZ 1 |
**I usually like to give information on prices and how to get to attractions, but with the DMZ tour you have to be with a tour group and prices and places you get to see vary by what group you go with. I went with the Travel and Culture group from Meetup.com. They offer a DMZ tour a few times a year. I recommend it.**
DMZ: a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. 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 is 155 miles (248 km...) long and approximately 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and is the most heavily militarized border in the world.
Fact: Korea is the only divided country in the world.
Its my birthday! I'm 28 years old.
I went on a meetup with the travel and culture group. We got up bright and early. My group met at 7:45. They gave us a choice of 3 pickup locations. There were 42 of us in all. Expats and a few Koreans. There were a few people that I knew from previous trips and I met some new people.
Some of my order might be off, but I'll just describe the places we went to.
The traffic flow pattern around the areas in the DMZ was interesting. They had these barricades set up sorta like an obstacle course. Its set up like that so you have to drive slowly and not rush through. All the areas are restricted also so you have to have permission to get through.
We got to Imjingak around 9am. Its an area right outside the DMZ. While we were there we saw the bridge to freedom, a steam locomotive, peace land, and other monuments. We could go to the roof of Imjingak and view the area from the observation point and use the binoculars that were set up there.
Next we went to The 3rd tunnel. First we went inside to watch a video that told us a little history about the Korean war. It started in 1950 and ended in 1953 in an armistice. They wanted it to end in a peace treaty. To this day the two countries are still not on good terms.
Then, we went to the tunnel. (North Korea dug tunnels so they could attack the south unexpectedly.) We couldn't take in our cameras to this area because photography was forbidden inside the tunnel. Walking down the tunnel was okay. We had to wear hard hats because the ceiling was so low. I'm only 5'2 and I hit my head a few times.The walk back up was terrible (for someone who isn't in great shape)!! It was all uphill. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath.
We went to an observatory to look out at the DMZ area. They had lots of the binoculars so you could look out. I started to take some pictures and the soldier came up to me and told me we couldn't take pictures and that I had to erase the pictures. He showed me the line where we could take pictures. You couldnt get a good view from that line. I wonder why they are so particular about not taking photos. Its just open space. A lot of people loved taking photos with the Korean soldiers. They seemed happy to see us. They were very friendly to us and waved and allowed people to take photos with them.
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| This is what you could see from behind the line |
Then we headed to our next destination-Cheorwon. We had a tour guide and we were the lead bus on the tour. There were other people who were following us to take the tour also. Our first stop was The second tunnel. We went down another tunnel. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside of there either. We could take pictures from the outside. We had to wear hard hats in this tunnel too because the ceiling was so low. Going down was good, but going back up was quite a hike. I sure got my exercise today!
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| 2nd tunnel |
we went to another observatory-Cheorwon Peace Observatory. The walk up to the observatory was another hike! Almost everything in South Korea requires walking uphill. At this site you weren't suppose to take photos but there wasn't anyone enforcing it so we did it anyway.
Then we went to see some other site with a old train and a crane park. I stayed on the bus. We were only going to be there for 10 minutes. Everyone said it wasn't worth it and it was boring so it was good I didn't get off the bus.
Then we went to see the North Korean labor party building. It was used by North Korea before the Korean war when that part was North Korea. After the war the lines were moved and its now a part of South Korea. Its just a shell of a building that was bombed.
Then we started heading home. We stopped at Mcdonalds to eat on the way home. There was a lot of traffic so we changed our routes for subway drop offs. We got home later than we expected. I got off at Sinsa station and took line 3 home. I didn't want to get on one line and transfer to another so I just took like 3 to Nokbeon and took the bus to E-Mart.
We had a full day. We saw a lot of stuff. It was a good trip and a little history lesson about the DMZ and the Korean war. We didn't actually get to enter into North Korea. They kept pointing and telling us where the border was for North Korea, but we couldn't get a good view.
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