DMZ Visit

On our day in Seoul we decided to take the DMZ tour. I knew about the Korean war of course, and about the problems with North Korea now, but I didn't know many of the details. Our trip was very educational and pretty amazing. We started out at 7:20AM when we were picked up at our hotel. We drove out to the DMZ zone which is only about 45 min from Seoul.


Here you can see the green zone is the DMZ, and the lower white dot is Seoul.
We went first to a station where we had to transfer in to a bigger tour bus. We didn't actually go in to the DMZ, but in to the citizen control line area that is just before the DMZ. There have been no humans in the actual DMZ for over 50 years. They say it is now the only place where the wildlife is untouched.

Before we left on the tour bus, we looked around the station. There were several monuments there and the one and only rail bridge between the north and south Koreas.

They have had one train cross between the two koreas, but hope to make agreements to allow the trains to run through the north and on to the China and Russian rail lines. We toured a rail station that is big enough to handle large numbers of people, but currently not in use at all. There is a real hope for reunification in the south and they are building the infrastructure to make it possible.

Here Liza and I are standing on the "Freedom Bridge" which is the bridge that thousands of POWs crossed at the stop of the Korean war. It is now walled off and there are banners and notes across the wall.

Next we went in to the military controlled area and went to tour the 3rd infiltration tunnel. This was a part of history I didn't know anything about. This tunnel was discovered in 1978 and was being dug by the North to prepare to invade the South. They had dug all the way under the DMZ and were close to getting beyond it. It was designed to move a division an hour in to the south.



We rode this little train down in to the tunnel. It was 300 meters down through such a small opening that I had to duck my head. It made me a little ill. When we got to the bottom, we walked back inside the tunnel all the way to the wall that the South built to close off the tunnel. It is now watched 24/7 by cameras to guard against invasion. When we were at that point we were actually about 75 meters directly below the DMZ


We couldn't take pictures inside the tunnel, but found these on the internet. You can see how low the ceiling was. I had to duck to walk down it. It was really pretty claustrophobic and I was glad to get out again.

Here are Liza and I in front of a unification monument. Even in the face of aggressive acts like building invasion tunnels, the south is still hopeful for lasting peace and eventual reunification.



Finally we went to the observation post where we could look across the DMZ in to North Korea. You can see it here, though it was pretty hazy. We had a great time and learned a lot on the tour. I'm really glad that we go to go!