The De-Militarised Zone

On our penultimate day in Seoul, my dad and I made a trip to the De-Militarised Zone. As one may perhaps expect, it is not a journey one person, whether foreign or Korean, can make by themselves. There are only a few companies that are licensed to lead tours to the DMZ, and even fewer that can lead tours to the Joint Security Area (JSA). We, therefore, joined a half-Japanese, half-English-speaking tour bus in the centre of the city, and let ourselves be led around the sights to be seen.

Seoul City Hall - the bus set off for the DMZ close-by

"I Seoul U"

The De-Militarised Zone is a four-kilometre-wide strip of land around the demarcation line established at the end of the Korean War. As the name indicates, the DMZ is an area free of weapons, though Koreans joke that surrounding it is the TMZ, the “Totally Militarised Zone,” where hundreds of thousands of soldiers stand in constant readiness for conflict. Strangely enough, the DMZ has become a popular tourist destination, with busloads of visitors arriving every day – some even from the north – to peer across the border.

The view of South Korean guard towers and North Korean mountains from the bus

Appropriately, our first stop was the new Dora Observatory, a modern building with huge glass windows and roof-top telescopes perfectly suited to give tourists the best view of North Korea. From the building, one can clearly see fences and guard posts, as well as two giant flagpoles, one South Korean and one North Korean, facing each other off on opposite sides of the border. It was a surreal experience.

Barbed wire and cross

People peering into North Korea

A café with a view of North Korea

The DMZ: the flags of South Korea and North Korea, and Kaesong farther back

A South Korean guard tower

Binoculars into North Korea

The original Dora Observatory

Equally surreal was our visit to the Dorasan railway station, another hyper-modern building but much less useful and much more puzzling. Once a simple station on the route from Seoul to Pyongyang, Dorasan Station now houses bizarre, wishful maps of a Trans-Eurasian railway beginning in Seoul, running through North Korea, and ending all the way in Lisbon. Admittedly, it does still serve as a train station, but only receives tourist trains coming from the south.

Dorasan Station

A map of the Trans-Eurasian Rail Network

Rail tracks

Somewhat optimistic signboards

The bus transported us to yet another site, this time the so-called “Third Tunnel of Aggression.” North Korea began to build this tunnel in the 1970s as part of an effort to launch a surprise attack on its southern neighbour, yet it gave itself away in the June of 1978 with an underground explosion. While North Korea subsequently claimed the tunnel was part of a coal mine, South Korea has pointed to the general scarcity of coal in the area, and there are even claims that the North Koreans painted a few rocks black to make them look like coal. Sadly, during our visit, the weather was not on our side and the tunnel was closed off for fear of flooding. We walked down a steep South Korean-built tunnel to its entrance, and then clambered our way back up again.

After lunch (I now consider the de-militarised variety the best kimchi I have ever eaten), we visited a memorial with an old rusty train from the Korean War.

An old lady at the memorial

A Vietnam War era train

Thousands of messages attached to a fence

A war memorial

The final part of our visit was the Joint Security Area, the place where the cease-fire talks between the United Nations Command and the Korean People’s Army and Chinese People’s Volunteers were held. To enter the JSA, we had to board a special UN bus, leaving behind our South Korean tour guide (it is much more difficult for South Koreans to visit the JSA, partly because of safety concerns and partly for fear of defection). Instead of our tour guide, we were joined by an American sergeant, a young man with a slightly unintelligible army-like slur and a gallows sense of humour. He showed us the place where Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in skipped across each other’s borders all smiles and holding hands, a gesture that was soon repeated by Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump. Of course, the most anticipated part of the visit was crossing over to the North Korean side inside one of the JSA conference rooms – something that all of us did perhaps a little too willingly.

A soldier at the JSA

A soldier in front of the tree jointly planted by the leaders of North and South Korea

The tree planted by Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in

North Korean Panmungak Hall in the background

A South Korean soldier

Soldier in front of Panmungak

Our guide at the Northern side

The view of South Korea from the North

Freedom House

A JSA church

The JSA Buddhist shrine

Upon returning to Seoul, I once again ate dinner with Michael. Sneakily upholding Korean hospitality code, he paid for the meal while I was in the bathroom. After making a short visit to the local adidas store to marvel at the extent of Korean consumerism, Michael took me to see Yonsei University where he has been studying this summer. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this university is how similar it is to Yale, both in its colours, the iconic Y, and the occasional ivy-clad building. Michael had me taste milk soda and was disappointed that I found it completely disgusting. Really it should not be surprising considering it tastes nothing like milk.