The DMZ
Saturday we went to the DMZ (demilitarized zone), or the border of North Korea. Did you guess correctly? It's only one of the top tourist attractions in the country (no joke)!
Joint security area (JSA) at the DMZ. Our guide is in the foreground, and the three soldiers behind him are South Korean. You can't really see it, but there's a North Korean soldier standing at the top of the steps of the building in the background (on the North Korean side).
The DMZ is the last border of its kind, and boy, was it surreal. We went on a tour with the USO, so our guides were U.S. soldiers and everyone on the tour held a non-Korean passport; 70% were Americans. It almost felt like we were back home, except that we could see a North Korean soldier and the South Korean soldiers were so serious.
We had to be at the USO in Seoul by 7 a.m., so we went up on Friday night and stayed at a nearby hotel. There are other tours to the DMZ, and it was a pain to book the USO tour and get up there by 7 a.m., but it was definitely worth it. It's the only tour that goes to the JSA (see the picture above), which was by far the coolest part of the trip, and the U.S. soldiers definitely gave it an authentic feeling.
We even got to go to North Korea (sort of). We went inside the building where the North and South hold meetings (the blue building with the open door in the previous picture), and the border runs exactly through the middle of the building. Like I said, it didn't seem real. North Korea has been in the news so much lately, and it always seems like such a strange, far-off place. It was hard to believe we were actually there!
This South Korean soldier is guarding the door to North Korea (as if anyone would want to defect to North Korea!). So we're actually on NK soil in this picture!
After the JSA, we went to a tunnel that the North dug to try to infiltrate the South. You can hike all the way to where the South sealed it off, which is about the length of a football field. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures there.
We got to hear all kinds of outlandish stories and information about the history of the DMZ, and we have lots more pictures, so I'll try to post some of them later this week. North Korea is just as crazy as it seems!
Joint security area (JSA) at the DMZ. Our guide is in the foreground, and the three soldiers behind him are South Korean. You can't really see it, but there's a North Korean soldier standing at the top of the steps of the building in the background (on the North Korean side).The DMZ is the last border of its kind, and boy, was it surreal. We went on a tour with the USO, so our guides were U.S. soldiers and everyone on the tour held a non-Korean passport; 70% were Americans. It almost felt like we were back home, except that we could see a North Korean soldier and the South Korean soldiers were so serious.
We had to be at the USO in Seoul by 7 a.m., so we went up on Friday night and stayed at a nearby hotel. There are other tours to the DMZ, and it was a pain to book the USO tour and get up there by 7 a.m., but it was definitely worth it. It's the only tour that goes to the JSA (see the picture above), which was by far the coolest part of the trip, and the U.S. soldiers definitely gave it an authentic feeling.
We even got to go to North Korea (sort of). We went inside the building where the North and South hold meetings (the blue building with the open door in the previous picture), and the border runs exactly through the middle of the building. Like I said, it didn't seem real. North Korea has been in the news so much lately, and it always seems like such a strange, far-off place. It was hard to believe we were actually there!
This South Korean soldier is guarding the door to North Korea (as if anyone would want to defect to North Korea!). So we're actually on NK soil in this picture!After the JSA, we went to a tunnel that the North dug to try to infiltrate the South. You can hike all the way to where the South sealed it off, which is about the length of a football field. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures there.
We got to hear all kinds of outlandish stories and information about the history of the DMZ, and we have lots more pictures, so I'll try to post some of them later this week. North Korea is just as crazy as it seems!
posted by AJ at 3:24 AM
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