The DMZ: Visiting North Korea

Ever since we began planning our trip to Korea, Will has been dying to go to the DMZ. So yesterday was all about the DMZ. The DMZ is total craziness. For any of you that don't know, the DMZ is is basically a "neutral zone" that is 2km between South Korea & communist North Korea. The North Koreans are totally crazy and so the UNC monitors the area and makes sure both sides don't kill each other. All of Will's family thought we were crazy to want to go there, but we think it's because they hear so much propaganda about how dangerous it is. They aren't allowed to go because no South Korean nationals are allowed to visit. You're only allowed to visit if you're a foreigner (we noticed a lot of important landmarks in Korea are not open to their own people) and you have to go through a tour. There are also SUPER STRICT rules. The first thing is the dress code: you can't wear flip flops or tank tops or short shorts or skirts. The tour guide wasn't kidding. She told us over and over again about it and said the reason the UNC says you have to wear shoes with backs is in case the N. Koreans attack, you'll want to be able to run away! Isn't that ridiculous?!?! Anyways, first we stopped at this park nearby the DMZ which is the furthest Koreans can go. They have memorials for family members who are in North Korea and this is where Freedom Bridge is.

Before we could get to the DMZ location, we went through 3 screening check points where an armed UNC soldier checked our passports and checked our clothes. They check for any offensive clothing and made some people change their shoes and take off a hat because there were stripes on it. Then we went into some room where we had to watch a debriefing video where we were given explicit rules like where we weren't allowed to take photos, what the North Korean soliders look like, and how we CANNOT (repeated many times) point or gesture to any North Korean soliders. You also cannot have anything in your hand except for a camera (in certain areas) and CANNOT put your hands in your pockets! If you put your hands in your pockets, the North Koreans might think you have a weapon and shoot you. Once we got debriefed, we got transferred to an official UNC bus driven by a UNC solider and we got a UNC solider escort who took in the bus with us ready to protect us upon attack. But don't worry: I had my sneakers on so I could've run away if I needed to. : )


The area below is the DMZ. The grey building in the back is North Korea. The blue buildings in the middle are part of the JSA (Joint Security Area). We had to walk to this area in two single file lines with our hands out and empty. The soldiers told our tour guide we had exactly 1 minute to take pictures and look around (in our spots in line of course) and they kept to their word about the time! We were supposed to go into the JSA building where there's a room where they have peace talks and there's a line down the table/room diving North & South Korea but that part of the tour was canceled. Unfortunately the North Koreans were having some visitors touring their building and the UNC soliders thought that was too close to us and so it wasn't safe for us to do that part of the tour.

The South Korean soldier in the above photo on the right is in a taekwondo pose. They always stand in this pose because it's supposed to be intimidating to the North Koreans.

I don't know if I agree. Do you??

The concrete line in the picture below divides North and South Korea. Sorry there aren't better pictures but they were very restrictive on when and where photos could be taken.

When we got back to Seoul, Will & I just kind of walked around and relaxed until we met Will's family for dinner. We accidentally found this awesome Buddhist temple though and thought it was so pretty. It is called Bongeun-Sa. It was right in the middle of downtown and you could see all the huge buildings and skyscrapers surrounding it. Surprisingly though, it was really quiet in the temple area and really peaceful. I couldn't believe we were in the middle of Seoul, a city that really never sleeps.

This place was really more like a Temple Park because there were 13 different temples there! Anyone could go into one of them and meditate but the main temple had monks leading meditations with music and drums. It was really cool. The picture below shows these white paper lanterns that were literally hung EVERYWHERE in this place. We think they had peoples prayer intentions written on them.

That evening we had dinner with some of Will's family and got ready to head to Tokyo. Seoul was really great and Will's family was super gracious! Someone from his family took us out to dinner almost every night and they each gave us what is equivalent to Chinese lucky money to help us enjoy our trip. They were so gracious that we didn't spend any of our own money in Seoul and it'll probably cover our expenses in Tokyo too! They were all so happy to meet me and they were practically drooling over Will and how handsome he was. I agree! : )

Random Things I've Learned About Seoul:

1. Seoul is REALLY affordable. Food and cabs/the subway are amazingly cheap!
2. Apartments are really small so no one really hangs out at their house with friends. Because of this, there are 3-4 story coffee shops, pastry shops, and ice cream parlors on every block!
3. Koreans love clean butts because everyone has a bidet!
4. No one knows where anything is by using an address without a GPS. Their system (apparently the same in Japan) is totally dumb. The streets officially have names but no one knows the names except for the postman. Also, buildings are numbered but they are numbered in order of when the establishment was built so the numbers are entirely out of order!
5. Koreans are obsessed with American everything: clothes, eyelids (they offer surgeries to add these), food, etc.
6. There are hardly any public trashcans around which is annoying but the city is surprisingly really clean with very little litter.
7. People here really love to eat and it's insane how many restaurants there are! It's not unusual for people to eat out every day.

Up next... Tokyo!