The tour consisted of four major destinations: the Freedom Bridge at Imjingak, the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel, the Dorasan Observatory, and Dorasan Station. Sometime in the 1950s, after the Korean war was over, an exchange of prisoners between North and South Korea took place on what is now referred to as the Freedom Bridge. Several thousand prisoners of war were returned to their respective countries via this railroad bridge. On either side of the bridge there are streamers with wishes of peace and the reunification of the Koreas written on them. It's quite interesting that despite everything that has happened, South Koreans still desperately want to be joined with North Korea in the future. Although, I asked some of my older students what they thought about the subject and they said that the two Koreas are too different these days and they don't want them to be a unified country. So maybe the younger generation, having grown up in a Korea completely separate from the North, has far fewer ties to North Korea than the older generation and is, therefore, much less eager for them to be reunified. But... that's all based on the opinions of three 15 year-olds who were bored out of their minds during my English class, so who knows haha.
The second place we visited was the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. Apparently the Korean war never officially ended, and neither has the North's desire to one day invade Seoul and take over the South. South Korea has located four tunnels dug by the North Koreans under the DMZ in the direction of Seoul, with the presumed purpose to be for the invasion of the capital. I believe the first one was found when South Korean military personnel observed steam rising from the ground. They dug into the ground until they intercepted the tunnel and discovered a bunch of North Koreans cooking rice! Instead of sharing their meal with their unexpected guests they shot at them. Eventually they retreated through the tunnel back to their side, but not before they smeared coal on the walls to make it look like it was a coal mine. That would be quite a coincidence for the mine to begin just over the border on the North's side and go under the DMZ in the direction of Seoul. Not to mention there were soldiers in the mine that opened fire as soon as they were discovered by the enemy. Also, a geological survey found that there were no coal deposits anywhere near the area. As they so eloquently put it at the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel, "this shows the double-sidedness of the North." The third tunnel was discovered after an official in the North Korean government defected and told the South about tunnels that the North was working on. He claimed to know of at least twenty projects that were under way or were planned for the future. It's scary to think that they've only found four thus far, but perhaps the plans were scrapped after that guy defected and gave them away. After he gave them the location of the tunnel they were working on, they bored holes into the ground and put PVC pipes filled with water into the earth. When the dynamite they used for blasting hit the PVC pipes, the water would gush out of the top and the South would know where they were tunneling. Using this technique, they were able to find the third tunnel. Since the discovery of the tunnel, the South has dug their own tunnel in order to intercept the North's. They installed three concrete barriers so that it would be nearly impossible to use the tunnels for an invasion and now a small portion of it is open to the public, although cameras are not permitted. The ramp leading down into the tunnel was on an eleven degree slope, which doesn't sound like much, but it was pretty steep. The ramp was 350 meters long, which is roughly a quarter of a mile I think, and there were seats every 50 meters so people could take a break if they needed to. They made everyone wear hard hats, which came in handy because the ceiling is too low for you to walk through normally and several of us banged our hard hats on it a few times. The tunnel was interesting because you could see holes that had been drilled for sticks of dynamite and you could still see where they had tried to make it look like it was a mine. Once you got as far as they would allow you to go you just looked at one of the concrete walls they had installed and turned around to go back. Pretty anticlimatic if you ask me, but the journey was more important than the destination.
Our final stop, Dorasan, had two tourist attractions: the observatory and the train station. The view from the observatory is of an uninhabited North Korean village within the confines of the DMZ set up specifically to make life in the North look appealing to South Koreans. So appealing that they would actually give up their homes and lives to venture to the North - fat chance of that ever happening! That would be like Americans suddenly crossing illegally into Mexico. The village consists of a bunch of apartment buildings that look unfinished and the world's biggest and tallest flag. Supposedly, the flag is so heavy that they have to take it down when it rains or else it will break the flagpole, which is shaped like the Eiffel Tower. The observatory had a bunch of binocular machines that you could look through for a minute or two for 500 won. Like I said before, the village was deserted, but up on a hill there was a guard tower and Katie and I spotted two North Korean soldiers standing around! We actually saw two real live North Koreans! That was probably just as exciting as anything else we did on the trip. We also got to see the village up close and it looked really fake and not as enticing as they probably were going for. The North Korean flag looked pretty impressive though. The fact that they waste their time, money and effort designing and building a fake village and putting up the world's biggest flag, all while their people are starving, shows how ridiculous their rulers are. After our time was up at the observatory, we piled back onto the bus and took a short ride down to the train station. As you can tell from one of the pictures on our site, the motto of Dorasan Station is "Not the last stop from the south. But the first stop to the north." Or something like that; pretty cheesy and also not true as of right now. They're hoping to link up the rail system in South Korea with the rest of the trans-siberian railway, but the North is blocking their way. The trans-siberian railway sounds really cool. It starts in either Russia or China and stretches all the way to Portugal or England. I have no idea how long it would take to get from one end to the other, but I know that the "fast" train takes five days to get from Beijing to Moscow, and that's probably only half the trip or a little more. We hadn't heard about the rail system until we started planning our trip to China and realized that their trains are a reasonably affordable way to travel, and you can also buy tickets for sleeper cars so it doubles as accommodations and transportation! The train station at Dorasan is famous because George W. Bush visited it with the former Korean president in 2002. They both gave short speeches and then signed railroad ties. They were on display inside the terminal; for an extra 500 won you could go outside and see the actual station. The station only gets one train per day. We're not sure what the one train goes there for (probably just to say they use the station), but we were lucky enough to be outside when it was departing. Outside there was a picture of W signing his tie and a bunch of Koreans standing behind him clapping. Everyone was taking pictures of it, so Katie and I decided to get in on the action. Of course, I stood by and applauded our former president while Katie stuck her tongue out at him.
Well, that about sums up our journey to the Demilitarized Zone. Our next adventure will be to the Communist state of China over Christmas break. We have 11 days off starting Dec. 24th and ending Jan. 4th. Most of our time will be spent exploring Beijing and nearby attractions, but we will also be making a short side trip to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors. The main things we want to see are the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Terracotta Warriors, the Ming Tombs, the Olympic facilities and several temples and palaces. We're very fortunate that Christmas and New Year's both fall on Fridays this year so we could get two extra days for vacation. We're taking our laptop with us so we can Skype our families on Christmas. If anyone wants something from China, just let us know. We'll probably be checking our email and facebook now and then.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! See you in 2010!
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