A VISIT TO THE DMZ

Last Saturday me, my roommate and her family, who were visiting here, went to see the DMZ, which is the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Korea. We had booked a tour beforehand and had to wake up around 6am since the bus left around 8am at City Hall. That was not an easy task since I'm used to waking up here after 8 every morning and I had also stayed up late the night before in Gangnam :D But we were actually early there, of which my roommate was very proud since I have a bad habit of being late from everywhere :D



The area was pretty impressive with all the security details and multiple passport & appropriate wardrobe checks but definitely a unique experience that I will remember! We got to cross the line and visit North Korean side inside one of the conference rooms and see a North Korean soldier (aka Bob) in Panmunjeom, although as you can see it started snowing and we had to cut that part of the trip short because of bad view and higher security risk. The DMZ, since it has been left alone for many years, is also a home to some rare and endangered wildlife like birds, goats, and perhaps even tigers and leopards. We actually saw a huge black eagle sitting on one electricity pole, which was pretty cool! We also visited a park with the bridge of freedom, an underground tunnel built by North Korea (not great fors claustrophobic let me tell you) and an observatory, from where we couldn't see anything else than fog and hear the propaganda music sent to North. The last stop of the trip was a visit to the Dorasan subway station built in hopes to one day have a unified Korea. It is the closest station to North Korea and it has a symbolic gate to a subway going to Pyeongyang (capital of North Korea). Like the sign says: "Not the last station from the South, but the first station toward the North".
After that trip we were pretty tired. Since there are big protests held in Seoul every Saturday, the bus had to leave us to a different place, but it was close to Hongdae so we continued to have dinner there at a Japanese place and a few beers at Mike's Cabin before heading back home :)