DMZ Day

Monday or your Sunday

Today we slept in till 8am or so and it felt really good.  Sure 8am may not sound like sleeping in but after waking up in the middle of the night for several days and dealing with an incredibly sore, stiff neck the whole time, 8am was amazing.

We decided to take it easy in the morning so we went downstairs to have breakfast, blog a bit and catch up on email. The House Hostel has a great little kitchen and deck area to relax in. I ate 3 bowls of cereal and had 4 pieces of toast; my body was clearly craving some regular carbs.

(hi...this is Julie, inserting on Curt's blog. I wasn't hungry for breakfast, and thought, " No, Julie you need to eat. So I had one small bowl of cereal, and EVEN a half a piece of toast thinking that would really help. I WAS soooo hungry later! Why did I not follow in the foot steps of eating machine)

Since we weren’t flying out for Shanghai until the following morning we decided to try and go to the DMZ today before leaving Korea. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to make it back to Seoul with enough time to then go the DMZ from there because it would already be mid afternoon by the time we’d get back to Seoul. I had read somewhere that we could go to the DMZ near Sokcho so I asked The House Hostel manager, Yoo, what we would need to do to make it happen.

As always Yoo knew exactly what to do and gave us detailed directions on how to get to the DMZ from Sokcho:

1.     Go to the Bus Stop down the alley and across the street from the little market nearest to The House Hostel.

2.     Wait for Bus #1 or #1-1.

3.     Ask the Bus driver if they are going to Dae Jin because not all of those buses actually go to Dae Jin.

4.     Take the bus to last stop on the line in Dae Jin.

5.     Walk 20 minutes north to the Welcome Center, it’s on the West or Left side of the road.

6.     Then hitch hike from there to the Observation Tower, which is a 15-20 minute car ride north. (We fully expected to hitch hike but actually found a taxi driving by the welcome center that we had take us there and then back to the bus terminal.)

7.     Yoo also suggested hitch hiking back from the DMZ to Sokcho and said that hitch hiking was safe to do.

The idea of hitch hiking to the DMZ made me a bit nervous but was an exciting prospect so we jumped on the bus and headed north.

I slept a lot on the bus, still catching up from jet lag, but in between dosing off I realized that as we headed North the entire beach front was closed off by a barbed wire fence and we kept passing sections of what looked like thick concrete walls painted in camouflage.  Upon closer inspection I realized that these were all rigged with explosive so that in case of an invasion from the North they could be blown up and block the roads. All the bridges we passed over were also rigged with explosives for similar purposes. On a side note, this also reminds me that in the subways in Seoul they have gas mask distribution stations with videos playing on monitors showing how to use the masks and get out in case of an attack.

It was an interesting experience to see these intense things juxtaposed in contrast to the open, kind and friendly people we encountered throughout South Korea.

After reaching the end of the bus line we got off the bus and started hiking north, not really knowing what to really expect or look for. Sure enough though, just as Yoo said, we came to what we guessed was the welcome center after about a 20-minute walk. There was no English writing anywhere and no English speakers to be found. We found a ticket counter but weren’t sure what the tickets they were selling was for and thought it may just be for the visitor center or museum so we decided to just go outside and try hitch hiking north.

Luckily, right when we got out to the road a taxi drove by. We flagged him down and asked about going to the DMZ. He was trying to explain something to us but we didn’t understand so he called someone and started talking to them about it. He then handed the phone to me and the guy on the other end was able to give me a pretty clear explanation of what to do in English.

We went up, bought the tickets to get entry to the DMV, jumped in the taxi and headed north. After about 10-15 minutes we came to a military checkpoint. Driving through barricades and barbed wire fences we stopped at the check point where South Korean military, armed with machine guns, checked the drivers credentials and took a close look at us through the windows. Satisfied that everything was in order they let us through.

After a few minutes more we arrived at the Observation building and the Korean War memorial museum. The observation building is up on a hill overlooking the Sea of Japan and the DMZ. From the top you can see into the DMZ and further on into North Korea. Looking through binoculars that cost 500 Korean (less than $0.50 US) for a couple minutes, you can see various lookout towers on the hilltops and fences covered with barbed wire all over. There is one road and rail line running North and South and they are heavily fortified.

It was a humbling experience to look out over this no mans land, covered in barbed wire, barricades and land mines, contemplating the divided Korea, the war and the intense situation that still remains. I sincerely hope that peace and unity will someday overcome.

The taxi driver took us back to the bus stop, where a bus was already waiting. 

 ( Julie insert: This is me walking into the bathroom that smelled like pure death and torture!)

We jumped on the bus, made it back to the hostel without incident, grabbed our bags and headed to the bus station, getting on another bus, which took us back to Seoul in preparation for our flight to Shanghai, China the next morning.

                                                            

Posted by Curtis Fullmer