DMZ Tour

Our second Sunday with Brenden's parents was also our last day, so we woke up bright and early to go on a DMZ tour. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures except at designated spots, so we don't have any pictures of North Korea or of the tunnel. But more about that later.

To begin, a minivan picked us up at our hotel, then drove us the staging ground for all DMZ tours. We wander around this touristy area, which has a few small shops (we buy a snack for later), then pile onto a different bus to be taken to the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel.

The 3rd Infiltration Tunnel is a tunnel dug by North Korea into South Korea. Four have been discovered so far (three in the 1970s, but the last one was in 1990). The third tunnel is only 44 kilometers (27 miles) from Seoul and 1,635 meters (just over a mile) long. It's 73 meters (240 feet) underground, and it's quite steep--I wore my sweater on the way down, but I definitely didn't need it on the way up! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures (cameras were required to be left in lockers above), but it was very interesting. The inside of the tunnel is painted black--when asked about the tunnel, North Korea apparently told South Korea they were mining for coal! It feels tight and small going through it with a tour company, but they told us 30,000 troops could go through in an hour.

Outside of the tunnel, there's a visitor's center, movie theater, and several interesting artistic pieces. This one depicts Koreans trying to put the two Koreas back together:


Here I am with Checkpoint Charlie, a small statue outside of the visitor's center:


Inside the visitor's center is the movie theater, and we watched a short video about the tunnel and the DMZ. We were familiar with most of the historical stuff from our trip to the War Memorial Museum the day before, but the main point of the movie seemed to be that the DMZ had once been the symbol of war and division but it was now the symbol of hope and reconciliation. It is true that because of all the landmines in the DMZ, it has served as a nature preserve and several formerly endangered species have flourished there. The last screen in the movie is of butterflies flitting through long grass, and I'm sure that happens. It is also true that this was prior to North Korea's recent round of saber-rattling. Nevertheless, I think the movie's claims of the DMZ being a symbol of reunification is a little overly hopeful, shall we say.

However, that seems to be the dominant theme of the DMZ tour. After the tunnel and movie, we went to Dora Station, a railroad station with tracks that run between Seoul and Pyeongyang. Well, not actually...there are signs stating that tracks run there (see below) and a sparkling train station (see the second picture below), but there aren't actually any tracks, and neither North nor South Korea wants there to be any. Instead, this "rail station" was built as a symbolic gesture towards reunification. Symbolic railroad ties were even signed by the presidents of South Korea and America, although there aren't any actual railroad ties.




All of this confirms South Korea's huge desire to be reunified, and makes it even more achingly clear that it won't happen anytime soon.

After the DMZ tour, we headed back to Seoul, hung out in the hotel for a bit (Brenden and I had checked out, but Barbara and Doug were staying one more night), then ate a quick dinner at the Express Bus terminal before Brenden and I said good-bye and headed home.

- Carissa