Day15- The DMZ
Day 15:
잊혀진 전쟁
Today’s adventure took us to a place not many go to.
It’s the 38 parallel, the armistice line, the demilitarized zone. The crazy part about it is it’s the most heavily fortified border on the planet. It’s the border between arch enemies North and South Korea. The tour itself started super early, 7am meet up to drive the hour plus to the DMZ. On the bus ride there, there was a young woman from the North who had defected. She told us about his everyone in her family had made attempts at escaping and succeeded, except for her brother, his wife and their kids. They had “vanished”. She spoke about the starvation everyone faces, how status and well connected you are determines your housing and employment. Your jobs and ever you do in life are chosen for you. The leaders, the Kim dynasty, are worshipped as gods. And she said people are executed for connecting to the internet, watching Korean dramas or listening to k-pop, and could get arrested for not bowing when walking by one of the hundreds of Kim statutes/memorials.
The tour itself required you to have a passport and get clearance ahead of time, and the Korean military came on the bus and checked all passports. We had 4 stops. The first was Imjingak Pyeonghoa-Nuri park, a village in the reunification zone that currently houses South Koreans, but the north abandoned it around 2015.
It also had some relics from the war, as well as an industrial park where both sides were to have employees.
Next up was the Freedom Bridge, where over 13,000 prisoners of war were released back to the south in 1953. Not all POWs were released as agreed to, with over 75,000 declared musding or KIA.
The last living POW was released in the early 2000s. The 3rd stop is the demarcation line and observatory. Multiple fences, guard houses, and an eerie non-stop voice heard over loud speakers. It comes from the North Korean side, and spews propaganda. The south responds periodically with K-Pop. Think BTS. The observatory allows you to see into the northern side.
You can see the lack of roads, guard houses and army outposts.
Theres a pic of me on a road next to a fence with barb wire on top and me pointing up. Thats North Korea on the other side. Insane im that close to the hermit kingdom.
The last spot was the 3rd tunnel. Since the war ended, South Korea has located 4 tunnels dug deep into the ground, each miles long. The one we went into would have allowed at least 30,000 troops to secretly cross in and attack the south per hour. Remember, Seoul is less the 50 miles from the border, and all 4 tunnels went to the outskirts of Seoul.
It was now midafternoon, time for a siesta. And of course after that shopping. Of course an H&M!
Which is crazy because if you know me, you know I’m a Coldplay fan. They happen to be in Seoul this week performing 5 sold out shows. I could’ve gone to see them, but figured no, I’m going in the bay in May and Vegas in June. What do we do instead?!? Head out and cruise around the Myeongdong district.
There’s tons of street food, shopping, places to eat and those hard to find items, including new luggage needed for everything we bought. Ended with dinner at a korean BBQ spot. More grilled meat.
The funny thing about the people, they’re very different from the Japanese. While the people of Japan are very orderly and structured, and very formal - Koreans are not. We saw a few workers go off on customers, no standing on the left side of the escalators, and definitely more of the Asian attitudes we saw in Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia a couple years ago. Wonderful to see the differences and distinct personalities and cultures come through.
Final step count was 12,432 and 5.49 miles.#dmz#myeongdongstreetfood#Seoul#southkorea #Asia2025
