DMZ I guess the physical stress of climbing Dragon Gate mountain wasn't enough for me
during this Korean adventure trip so I booked a 6 hour tour to the DMZ. This meant Steve andI were up at 5:30 AM in order to walk 30 minutes to a shuttle
bus that drove us to a DMZ tour bus on the other side of this large city. Now I know why whenever you ask a Korean where
they are from they say Seoul. It is a city that never ends. And for us foreigners who can't read the road signs, it is like traveling
through a never ending maze. I now realize why this is so. I am so accustomed to the rectangular grid of American cities that I can't get used to what feelslike random city design. Anyway, once on the tour bus we traveled north for 35 kilometers to Panju which
is the northern most district of South Korea. This is the site of the 38th Paralell -
the border between the communist North and southern Republic. Once there we were able
to stand on the edge of mine fields, view the mountainside village to the
North as well as the 18 meter statue of Kim Jung Il. It was at that observation tower that we were able to buy North Korean beer. That's right - North korean beer. In fact, if you go on youtube and type in north
Korean beer you can even see a twi and
a half minute North Korean commercial for it. But
the best part of the tour was the serious 11 percent pitch down a very long and low tunnel
number 3 dug by the North Koreans to invade the south as recently as 1978. We were able
to walk underground
as far as the North Korean border where there was a cement partition
with a small opening in it. The scariest part was looking at the sheer exhaustion on the faces of those coming up the tunnel as we were going down. The climb out was proof that where
there is a will there is a way because I was sure as hell NOT going to get stuck down there.
The tour also brought us to the train station built in anticipation of a reunification between the north and south. The train station has been used only
twice for ceremonial events but it
spotlessly waits in hope for the day the North and South are reunified. Once the tour was
over we headed back to Seoul. Sup had arranged to pick us up where we first caught the
bus. However, we were never
told that the tour doesn't end where it begins. It ends
somewhere convenient to the tour guide and driver so the passengers need to find their own way back from there. Luckily we had rented a cell phone and called Sup to tell him of our
new drop
off location. We then both collapsed and slept with mouths open until we got to that final location. Sup arrived soon after we disembarked and we went for a hamburger and
beer. He then drove us back to Patricia's neighborhood. Around 8PM when Patricia
arrived
home from work we went out for a final night on the town. I believe we went to Gangnam
district (I am still confused with location names) and walked along the very busy streets and went shopping at a really funky store. We walked up multiple
flights of stairs to buy a K-Pop
cd for Matthew only to find out it was a video rental store, and then finally went to a cool "fried rice and barbecue" restaurant where we drank beer and Soju with our meal. It was there that Patricia taught us you don't
pour your own drink. We took the subway home and finally got to sleep around midnight. Once again it was an exhausting day, but I wouldn't go back and
change a thing - especially our night out with Patricia.