Tag: South Korea

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Jochiwon

Friday morning we took the subway to Seoul Station to catch the high speed rail going south. By the way the Seoul subway is even more elaborate than Beijing's, but still easy to use.

We got on the KTX train going south to Osong station and beyond.

If you zoom in on the TV screen you can see the speed in the top left corner

We got off at Osong station, 150km away about 45 minutes later. We were met at the station by my old friend David Farr. David has been a friend of mine since we were little kids, and now he and his wife Elizabeth are ESL(English as a Second Language) teachers for Korea University. We got a mini tour of the Jochiwon campus of Korea university, then went for lunch at a local traditional Korean restaurant.

Yanmei and I in front of kimchi pots at the restaurant

After lunch we looked around the Jochiwon area. It is a good contrast to Seoul, small town and farming countryside instead of a massive urban center. They were just starting to flood the rice paddies, but hadn't started planting yet.

David Farr and I at a Buddhist temple

In the afternoon we caught a train back to Seoul. David and Elizabeth came with us to be our guides in Seoul for the weekend. They've been living in Korea for nine years and used to live in Seoul.

After dinner we decided to do something regular and go see a movie. We picked Avengers 2 (part of which was filmed and takes place in Seoul). The theatre we went to had assigned seating and we actually bought the tickets before dinner so we could pick any seats we wanted, we picked the middle towards the back. The movie was in English with Korean subtitles. Even a Hollywood movie can be a cultural experience. Avengers has been out for a while so not many people showed up, but those that did sat directly in front of us and behind us. Remember they could have picked any seats they wanted and they would have seen the ones we picked when they picked. Later Elizabeth said it was Korean culture. They wanted to clump together to be part of a group instead of sitting away from others as we would do in North America.

-David

 

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Bonus country: South Korea

Seoul is only a two hour flight from Beijing. Neither of us had been to Korea and we both wanted to go, so we booked a flight. This will be a short but full trip. We arrived Wednesday night and just took a taxi to our hotel and checked in. The hotel is located near Myeongdong which is a good central location in Seoul.

Thursday we had booked a DMZ+JSA tour. The DMZ is the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea and the JSA is the joint security area, which straddles the border and is guarded by both North and South Korean troops.

We went to three sites along the DMZ border. First the Dorasan train station. The station is the last stop on the railroad that links North and South Korea. Unfortunately since 2007 NK no longer accepts rail traffic, so the train only goes south. There is a fairly significant military presence there.

Soldiers on the left, tourists on the right

After the train station we went to the Third Infiltration Tunnel. It is called that because it was the third tunnel discovered being dug underneath the DMZ from NK. It was discovered in 1978. Unfortunately they had a strict no photo policy inside the tunnel. It is 73 meters deep and through solid rock. We had to wear hard hats and it is a good thing because we both hit our heads on the low cieling. We were able to go as far as the first barricade beyond which the tunnel is supposedly mined.

Tunnel down to the 3rd Infiltration tunnel

Bonus picture below.

Not a picture of the tunnel, this is the Thurston Lava tube from Hawaii 🙂

After the tunnel we went to the Dorasan observation post which is on a small mountain had has a good view across the DMZ to NK. Unfortunately it was not a clear day so you couldn't see much detail.

Finally we went to the JSA. We stopped at Camp Bonifas before the DMZ where an armed US soldier from the United Nations JSA Battalion checked our passports (we had to send scans of our passports 3 days ahead to be cleared for entry). After we entered we had to sign a form saying we understood and would follow the rules, such as no pointing, waving or gesturing, no leaving the group, no communicating with NK personnel, etc. Then there was a short presentation on the history of the Korean War and JSA.

Since the JSA is on the border, you actually go through part of the DMZ to get there. We switched buses and drove into the DMZ with our army escort. Again we were not allowed pictures but before the DMZ there is a tank wall, a mine field and electrified razor wire.

JSA

The picture above needs some explanation. The blue buildings are UN buildings and the grey buildings are NK buildings. You can see our US army guide just above the shoulder of the guy in the red shirt. The soldiers with the white band on their helmets are South Korean, and they are standing rigidly motionless. Between the two UN buildings in the center you can see some gravel, then a line, then concrete. That line is the border between NK and SK. He's hard to see but there is a NK guard In the door way of the larger NK building in the distance. The middle UN building with the open door is where negotiations are sometimes held.

Yanmei is on the right side of the South Korean soldier, which means she is officially in North Korea. Technically I guess that makes it two bonus countries.

Me in North Korea. The flag and recording devices in the middle of the conference table mark the border.

For me this was one of the most interesting days of the trip so far. Really good tour and there is a lot of stuff I left out too. This is not something we are used to in North America. There is a lot of history and still a lot of tension behind everything that is going on here.

-David