Day 9 — Seoul, South Korea

  6/9/2024 Sunday

Itinerary:

• Bakery
• DMZ Tour
• Imjingak Peace Gondola
• Unification Village
• DMZ Jangdan Kongcafe  
• School Food Myeongdong 

We woke up early today as we have the DMZ tour. We bought some pastries on the way to the meeting point. There were 43 guests today on the tour and the guide asked us to fill out our name, birth date and phone number on a form as she needs that with our passports to buy the tickets. Also, the guard might come to the bus to check our identity as well.

South Korea is known as Republic of Korea while North Korea is known as Democratic. Starbucks was the first company that introduced to go coffee as Koreans usually sit in the cafe to drink coffee. Koreans love to drink coffee and don’t sleep too long. Korea was attacked 3000 times and never attacked other countries. Japan conquered Korea for 35 years. Brassware was used in utensils by Koreans but Japan melted them to make bullets to use in war. Japan surrendered in August 1945 after USA dropped the bombs. Korea became Americanized and American military starting coming to Korea.

DMZ is 4 miles wide and 155 miles in length. 2 miles from North Korea border and 2 miles from South Korea border.

It took about 50 minutes from Seoul. First, we were stopped at the checkpoint where the guard came to check our passports. After we were allowed to pass, we visited the Korean Peninsula Ecological Peace Tourism Information Center and saw the unification bridge and freedom bridge. The unification bridge is also called the cow bridge as the CEO of Hyundai was from North Korea and stole the money from his Father who got the money when he sold 1 cow. Later the CEO was successful and returned 1001 cows which travelled by the unification bridge to North Korea. We also saw the Pyeonghwajeong Pavillion and Wish Ribbon Zone.

Then we bought the tickets to go on the Imjingak Peace Gondola and we picked the Crystal cabin for a bit higher price so that we can see the bottom of the gondola. The gondola is 1.7km long and we can clearly see the fields below us. We went to Camp Greaves to check out some exhibition. This is also the world’s only gondola that travels the Civilian Control Zone area connecting the north and south.

DMZ (Demilitarized Zone)

On July 27,1953, the Korean War ended with a cease-fire. The Northern and Southern Limit Lines were created as each side moved their troops back 2km from the Military Demarcation Line. The lines reach 248km in length from Jeongdong-ri, Paji-si, to Myeongho-ri, Goseong-gun.

At present, an area within 2km on both the north and south side is designated as the DMZ. Excluding the DMZ, the overall area is considered the most heavily militarized region in the world.

CCZ (Civilian Control Zone)

The southern and northern cease-fire lines of the DMZ are called the Southern Limit Line and the Northern Limit Line. The CCL was designated within a distance of 5-20km from the Southern Limit Line of the DMZ to limit and control the entrance of civilians into the area to protect and maintain the security of military operations and facilities near the DMZ.

North Korea’s men had to do military service 7-9 years and women 4-6 years. You can’t get married during military service. 

151 family live in the village at DMZ and 452 people total. They are farmers and grow organic produce as they can’t use pesticides as they can use pesticides to make bombs.

Next, we went to the Observatory Deck to see North Korea.

Only 30% we can get a good view and we are lucky today as we have a very good view of the North Korea.

The tunnel was founded by South Korea in 1974 and they used to be poor while North Korea was richer as they have fields, nuclear, etc. Have to wear helmet in the tunnel and can’t bring any belonging as well as cell phone.

JSA means joint shared area and is monitored by United Nation. 

We are going to the third tunnel which is 358m walkway down and 265m straight. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought. The main thing is that we have to bend our head when we go to the second part of the tunnel as the clearing is not too tall.

Unification village was built in 1973 and has 151 families and one of their local village. After we reached the village, I had to try their Jangdan Soybean Latte as it’s DMZ’s speciality. It has a very unique taste that I don’t really like.

After the collage, we were on our way back to Seoul and had to prepare our passports again as the guards will come and check our identity again and everyone has to be in the bus before we can leave. If anyone is misssing, we can’t leave.

It took about an hour to finally reach Myeongdong. After that, we went to School Food for dinner as we didn’t even have enough time during the tour to eat lunch as we were on a very tight schedule.

After dinner, we shopped around Myeongdong for more beauty products and bought some street food from the night market. Most of the dishes are between 4000 to 15000 Won which is not very cheap for street food. A cup of watermelon cost 6000 Won which is a bit over $4 and I can buy an entire watermelon for less than $8 in the U.S.