We woke with sore legs today, but as you saw yesterday the views were worth it!
This morning we met our bus tour to the DMZ at 8.20am. As I mentioned earlier in the week, originally I had researched and booked a private tour for just Dad and I to the Joint Security Area (JSA) and other locations in the DMZ. If you watched the news when Donald Trump came here to meet with Kim Jong Un, you would have seen them shake hands across the border near some blue buildings. This is the JSA, and here you can go into a room which is half in South Korea and half in North Korea. We had sent copies of our passports and were all ready to go, but as I mentioned on Tuesday we were told the JSA had closed due to the African Swine Fever outbreak. Sadly looking online it appears that people got to visit last week, but such is travel. Travel teaches you that sometimes you have absolutely no control over what happens and you just have to make the best of it.
Despite getting great reviews for the tour itself, our original tour company we booked with were terrible at communicating. When they cancelled on us I didn’t hear from them again for 36 hours. They also tried to charge us the same amount to not see much in the DMZ today as a replacement. So we got a refund and booked a cheap bus tour with tourist information on Wednesday saving $300 each.
We weren’t off to a good start though, because we sat on the bus for 45 minutes while the tour guide tried to sort out an overbooking mess. I was getting a bit antsy at this point, but once he boarded the bus he put our minds at ease. Our guide’s name was Han, and he’s currently in the army reserve. He’s a parachuter and has done over 3000 parachute jumps. Interestingly he also had his blood type woven onto the arm of his army uniform (he was wearing it).
As we drove towards the border, we could see military posts and barbed wire along the river even though this section of the river was not a border with North Korea. Han told us this is to stop or slow down anyone from North Korea coming by boat down the river and is called the Civilian Control Line.
If you’ve been reading along while we’ve been here, you would have read all about the Korean War history that I explained on Wednesday (if not, scroll down two posts and have a look). Until today it hadn’t fully hit me that prior to the Korean War, the whole of Korea was unified and not split up. It’s crazy and horrible that at the end of the war, because neither side had won it was just decided that a 248km demarcation line at the 38 degrees north line of latitude would separate the north and the south into two separate countries and the DMZ would be either side of it. From this line, it is 2km north to North Korea and 2km south to South Korea. No military action can take place (hence 'demilitarised'), but it’s obviously a very tense region. This border is like no other in the world, but the situation does remind me of the Berlin Wall. The people caught up amongst it had their lives changed forever with no choice.
Han told us that South Korea has tried to give North Korea money to fund buildings, jobs etc and improve their relationship but unfortunately as you’ve probably seen on the news, Kim Jong Un is a fan of big explosive toys, so seems to use the money towards those. Han described the relationship between Kim Jong Un and South Korea and the US as “shaking hands with one hand, holding guns with the other”. He was talking about hoping for reunification one day, but I wouldn’t want anything to do with Kim Jong Un personally!!
Our first stop was Imjingak Peace Park, the site of the Freedom Bridge. Originally there were two bridges, and prior to the war these provided an important passageway across the river for trains and the people of Korea. However when North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, the bridges were one of the ways they did so. Towards the end of the war, soldiers and refugees were sent over the bridge to South Korea. So while the bridge represents freedom, it also represents the separation of families and friends between the two Koreas, and the pain and suffering endured by the soldiers fighting in the war.
We went and saw the bridge and also a train that used to travel across it that now sits stationary since bombs stopped it on the tracks during the war. It was covered in bullet holes and had bent wheels. Han also took us into a bunker and then Dad and I checked out the peace bell, a couple of sculptures and went up to the observatory on the roof. One of the sculptures was about a TV program called ‘Search for the Dispersed Families’ that ran for 453 hours over 138 days 1983, and successfully reunited 10,189 families. The song ‘30 years lost’ played in the TV program and it came out of the speakers at the sculpture. We also saw the Mangbaedan Altar, which was built on the site of a temporary altar constructed by the 5 million refugees that fled North Korea (yes you read that right, 5 million!) and stayed here for a little while in the hope their family and friends would follow.
The infiltration tunnel was closed, but Han explained that South Korea has put many water pipes underground now so that if North Korea try to tunnel their way through again like they did during the war, the explosions to clear the underground space for the tunnel will blow up the pipes and spout water everywhere, meaning it would be obvious a tunnel is being created.
We then got out at Odusan Unification Tower, where I was a little alarmed by a sign on entry stating that if there was an attack by North Korea alarms and bells would sound and we would go into an underground shelter. Luckily, no such attack eventuated! We watched a short video and looked at a small model of the surrounding area. Where we stood, North Korea was 2100m across the river. Just to the east, the distance across the river was only 460m. We were also only 19km from the nearest North Korean town.
The highlight of stopping here was the binoculars on the rooftop observatory. They were very powerful and finally we had some DMZ related luck - the skies were very clear! Dad and I were able to see through them into North Korea. We could see houses, a museum and lots of farmland, and we even saw people!! I saw two groups of about 8 people out farming, and one person on a bike.
I already knew life was bad for the people in North Korea, but from what we saw it honestly looked like they were living centuries behind us. The buildings were all falling apart and they appeared to be living in a peasant farm village. Absolutely crazy that we with all our freedoms and opportunities could be standing so close yet so far from these people. I feel sorry for them and hope that one day they can live a better life. I managed to snap a few photos on our camera of the buildings. They’re quite zoomed in, but where you can see thin black blobs, those were people! The binoculars were much clearer.
These days, South Korea still receives approximately 1000 refugees from North Korea each year. Others defect to Russia and China. Han said they have to be monitored and prove they aren’t a spy for two years before they can be awarded citizenship here in South Korea. Of the population of North Korea, 10% live in the capital Pyeongyang and live an OK life. The remaining 90% live on farms in poverty, many dying of starvation. It’s no wonder people want to leave. It’s a risky process, and if people are caught then they and their entire family are executed.
Next we stopped at a Ginseng Shop. Han had made a big point that we were stopping at a cultural centre not a shop to be flogged products, but he was wrong. The lady told us all about Korea’s red ginseng which is apparently the best in the world due to optimum growing conditions. Ginseng has many health benefits. She talked at us (not to us, it was like someone had wound her up!) for 15 minutes before the sales began. Dad and I tried some tea and then walked straight out. I haven’t got any time or patience for those sorts of places.
Finally we were dropped at the War Memorial of Korea. On the way back it really started to cloud over, so I think we were very lucky to see into North Korea and the walls wouldn’t have had as nice views today compared to yesterday! We had the option of being dropped back, but we wanted to see the rest of the museum that we missed on Wednesday.
We explored outside in the sunshine this time and were pleased to find that due to there being no rain today, below the two brothers statue and inside some of the army vehicles was open. We explored a ship that engaged with a North Korean patrol ship that violated the armistice agreement in 2002.
Heading straight to the third floor today, we saw a series of rooms about the UN and the countries in the UN that jumped to south Korea’s aid. The UN chose to assist South Korea at the time because the Republic of Korea was “the only legitimate government of the peninsula approved” by the UN. From 21 UN countries, 1.94 million soldiers were sent. From reading the information, it seems that the reason the armistice was signed and no side won is because the UN did not want another huge scale world war like the first two the world had experienced.
We read about the war cemetery here near Busan (down south) that originally was the resting place of 11000 soldiers from other UN countries. Nowadays there are 2300 from 11 countries as many were repatriated later on. We read a beautifully tragic story about an Australian soldier called Kenneth Hummerston who died in the Korean War in October 1950. His wife Nancy never remarried or had any children, and when she died at the age of 91 in 2008, in her will she specified that she wished to be buried with her husband here. In 2010 she was.
We saw a teardrop made of 1300 dog tags, and an exhibition about donated items. On the way out we saw a clock and its sign told us that should reunification occur, the clock would be placed on a nearby sculpture with the time that the two countries are reunited displayed. Currently on the sculpture is a ruined clock with 4am displayed (the time that the war began in 1950).
On the way back we tried chicken ginseng soup, it was OK. We also had an ice cream. Tonight is our last night in Seoul. Soon we are going out for beer and a walk, then maybe some shopping and some more Korean BBQ.
I will write tomorrow at the airport to let you know how we get on tonight.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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