After leaving the railroad, we went to the Labor Party building. The Labor Party building was where NK set up headquarters in the South before and during the war. They used this building to organize their efforts to spread communism into the South. This, for me, was one of the more sobering areas to tour. The building is riddled with bullet holes and damage from war. The building had a similar feel to some of the concentration camps at Dachau. In part, that could be due to the fact that the area out back was used frequently for political executions. Although it was not mentioned in the tour, my understanding is that these executions went both ways depending on which country was in control of the area at that time.
Although I usually find it pretentious, I chose to use black and white for these pictures because color doesn't add anything to the detail. Take note of the numerous bullet holes that, as Savannah pointed out, were mostly at what would be head level.
A view from the outside.
Most of the building had to be supported with metal columns. Apparently, they only recently opened the building up to the public and we were the first foreigners to take a look at the inside. We may be the last as a drunken Australian broke one of the glass protective cases.
You get the idea. It was sad and dreary. Our last stop for the day was a small rice farming village renowned in Korea and several parts of Asia for its rice. We were welcomed by a kind old Ajuma (older Korean woman) who led us to our home for the night. We were staying with a widow who spoke on English, but was more than patient with our bastardized Korean. She showed us our rooms and we went into the center of the village for dinner. The main community hall had some cool carvings outside.
We had dinner, made a bonfire, and then roasted marshmallows. It felt a lot like camp. After a few card games, it was time to shoot of fireworks and then play a "bravery game." We were led by our Korean guide to a hill where 10,000 soldiers died over the course of a few days. We were then told to walk up the hill, one at a time, and to look out for ghosts. The hill was patrolled by locals with flashlights and squirtguns in wait to scare us. The whole idea was a little unnerving because it seemed disrespectful. I guess when you live that close to such a landmark of death, you become a bit desensitized. The coolest part of this game was reaching the top of the hill where we could see NK posts and villages lit up at night.
When we arrived back at camp, we were invited up to a rooftop to look at stars. The community has some really awesome telescopes. Both of these are controlled by a computer so that you can just type in coordinates and look at a certain part of space. The telescope in the foreground was your average telescope, but the fat blue one in back allowed us to take a look at Saturn. It looked like a dot with hazy rings around it, but it was cool nonetheless.
Tomorrow: planting rice in heavy rain and a look at Korea's Niagra falls!
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