War & Games

Day 11 is the day that world events impacted my travel itinerary. In the political world of 2018, there were lots of talks about the potential reunification of Korea. Many of these talks took place in the Korean Demilitarized Zone, aka the DMZ. Some of the people I talked with in Seoul were very optimistic. I was surprised because I would have thought that by this time, Koreans were used to being disappointed whenever there were signs that reunification might happen. Of course the talks stalled out. But the talks also impacted by plans to visit the DMZ.

I had signed up for a full-day tour of the DMZ. The highlight of the full-day tour is a visit to the Joint Security Area. The JSA straddles the border between South and North Korea. There are even conference rooms at the JSA where one side of the room is in the South and the other side is in the North. I had really been looking forward to crossing over from South to North and back again on foot. But because of ongoing talks, my full-day tour was canceled. Instead, I was able to replace it with a half-day tour, which didn’t include the JSA. So I made the best of it. I was able to use the unplanned free time to see some of the sights I missed after my longer-than-expected hike on Day 9.

The DMZ

So having accepted that I’d miss out on what would have been the most exciting part of the tour, I headed to the USO, did the required bureaucratic check-in, and then soon got on the bus bound for a very strange part of the world. The tour guide explained to my fellow tourists and me how there is a village that remains on the South’s side the DMZ. The villagers are allowed to come and go from the DMZ into the rest of South Korea. But other South Koreas are generally not allowed to enter the DMZ. Could you imagine living in such a place?

Dora Observatory

Not quite the Happiest Place on Earth, but maybe the most optimistic?

The 1st stop on the tour was Dora Observatory. From a high elevation, you can look over into North Korea. It was a little spooky knowing you can looking into the notorious Hermit Kingdom.

A glimpse into North Korea. It was a very gloomy day, so it was difficult to make out structures on the North Korean side.

3rd Infiltration Tunnel

The highlight of the truncated tour was definitely the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. This is the 3rd of 4 tunnels dug by the North and discovered by the South. Discovered in 1978, it’s about a mile long and 240 feet underground.

Hooray! The DMZ! It was really sort of strange how the DMZ–the symbol of the division of the Korean people–was made into a tourist site.

This sculpture almost seems to celebrate the tunnel that the North dug to facilitate a surprise attack on Seoul. And there’s that optimism, with the people pushing to the 2 split sides back together again.

Fake soldiers protecting the entrance to the 3rd Tunnel.

The actual entrance to the 3rd Tunnel. A mine rail vehicle can be ridden down into the tunnel.

We got to go down into the tunnel, but not by rail. (No pictures allowed.) We walked down to the tunnel through a very long hallway that’s at a very steep incline. I didn’t realize just how steep it was until I had to walk back up it on the return. At the bottom of the incline, we entered the actual tunnel. We had to wear helmets because the tunnel is no taller than 6 1/2 feet at any point. Even though I was hunched over, I was constantly bumping my head on the tunnel supports overhead. We could walk through the tunnel as far as a barricade installed close to the border with the North. Then it was time to turn around and retrace our steps back through the tunnel and up the long and very steep inclined hallway. Even though there’s not a lot to actually see, it was still pretty cool.

A model of the western portion of the DMZ. The yellow line is the border of the DMZ. The red line is the border between South Korea and North Korea.

Model of the Joint Security Area. The low blue and white buildings in a row near the center of the conference halls that straddle the border between South, on the left, and North, on the right.

Dorasan Station

All aboard for North Korea? Maybe some day.

Next stop: Dorasan Station! Dorasan Station is a very modern railway station. It seems out of place. At the beginning of the 21st century, the train line between South and North was restored. When relations between the 2 sides turned frosty again, the cross-border passage was shut down. Doransan Station is now the last stop on the line from Seoul. South Korea modernized the station in anticipation of services being restored again some day. There’s that optimism again. I got my commermorative Dorasan Station stamp during my visit.

The waiting and waiting and waiting room inside Dorasan Station.

Imjingak Park

Things got weirder at the last stop of the tour. We went to a park area complete with an amusement park. It’s DMZ Land! The amusement park was closed, but there were still sights to see.

Mangbaeddan is a memorial to families torn apart by the division of Korea and the Korean War. The memorial contains an altar for reverent observances.

Freedom Bridge–built on a portion of a railroad bridge destroyed during the Korean War–is so named because it was the site of a large prisoner exchange at the end of the war.

Beyond the Freedom Bridge is the railroad bridge linking Imjingak and Dorasan.

Steam locomotive destroyed during the Korean War. It’s pierced with more than 1,200 bullet holes.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my visit to the DMZ.

The War Memorial of Korea

From Imjingak Park, the tour bus rolled back to the USO in Seoul. It was a short walk from the USO to the War Memorial of Korea. The War Memorial is a museum with exhibits on the military history of Korea. I didn’t go inside (although the Memorial’s website shows some cool exhibits on display inside). But I wandered around the outside, where there was plenty to see.

At first glance, the Monument in Remembrance of the Korean War looks heroic…

But there is plenty tragedy to go along with the heroism.

The Korean War Monument–part bronze dagger, part tree of life.

Replica of a South Korea patrol boat that was sunk by North Korea in a confrontation between the 2 Koreas at sea in 2002.

A collection of military equipment on display at the War Memorial of Korea.

The Statue of Brothers, one from the Republic of Korea Army and one from the Korean People’s Army.

This concludes the somber part of Day 11’s sightseeing. The rest of the day was full of joyfulness.

Olympic Park

*The Thumb* by French artist César Baldiccini. But of course!

From the War Memorial, it was a bit of a subway ride to Olympic Park on the south side of Seoul. It was built for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Olympic Park contains numerous Olympic venues. (The Olympic Stadium is not in the park, but in a nearby location.) It also has a museum, a sculpture garden, and actual parkland. (I was originally supposed to visit the Olympic Park after my hike on Day 9. But I hike took longer than I expected, and I knew by that point that my full-day DMZ tour had been canceled. So I postponed by visit to Olympic Park to Day 11.)

The “virtual sphere” by Venezuelan artist Jesus Rafael Soto calls to mind the duality symbol from the South Korean flag.

*Metamorfosis* by Colombian artist Édgar Negret.

One Tree Hill, a popular site for filming commercials.

I was excited to see wild rabbits in Olympic Park.

Cloudy view of Lotte World Tower. The tallest building in Korea, it opened a year before my visit.

In addition to Lotte World Tower being the tallest building in Korea, it’s the 5th tallest building in the world. It’s another site that I was originally supposed to see on Day 9. While walking through Olympic Park, I could see that the top of Lotte World Tower was shrouded in clouds. So I didn’t bother going up to the observatory. And I had already gotten a bird’s-eye view of Seoul from N Seoul Tower on Day 10.

*Dialogue* by Algerian artist Mohand Amara.

The World Peace Gate, designed by Korean architect Kim Joong-eop. Mythical creatures are painted on the underside of the gate’s wings.

Beneath the World Peace Gate, the eternal flame.

Gangnam

How could I resist going to Gangnam, Seoul’s most famous neighborhood. The crazy display in the picture above is where I went Gangnam Style myself. Gangnam, also on the south side of Seoul, was another place postponed from Day 9.

Homo Hill

After a very spicy dinner in Gangnam, I headed back to the northern side of Seoul and got back to Day 11’s itinerary. I had thought heading to Seoul’s gay district, known as Homo Hill, made a fun juxtaposition to my visit to the DMZ and the War Memorial of Korea. (In my original itinerary for Day 11, I was to tour Homo Hill immediately after visiting the DMZ and the War Memorial.) Many of the bars had tongue-in-cheek double-entrendre names.