Welcome to the DMZ

Last week, Savannah and I made a trip to the DMZ. The DMZ is the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea. When neither North or South Korea could make progress during into enemy territory during the Korean war, the two sides agreed on a cease fire that entailed keeping a 4km strip of land free of almost any human life whatsoever. 2km extend into North Korean (NK) territory and the other 2km are in South Korean (SK) territory. The fact that no one is allowed has actually allowed the area to be utilized as a nature preserve where several endangered species are allowed to thrive as long as they don't step on any land mines.

Our tour was a blast. There were about 40 people in our group. All of us were either English teachers or GI's. The tour started off at a peace park that commemorates Lim Kkok-Jeong, the Korean equivalent to Robin Hood. Here he breaks the pillar of tyranny.

From DMZ

A trail from the statue leads to a small beach where we had lunch and skipped rocks.

From DMZ

From DMZ

Reminders of our proximity to the DMZ were everywhere. Here, a child walks by a machine gun nest without a second thought on his way to the park.

From DMZ

From our bus, we could see road stops and troops stationed every few hundred meters. We tried to sneak some shots of the soldiers, but almost all of them turned out pretty blurry.

From DMZ

Our next stop was the 2nd infiltration tunnel. After the war, NK began digging tunnels into SK territory to aid in any future invasion. The tunnel we visited was big enough to facilitate 16,000 trips marching continuously to enter SK every 60 minutes. Some of the other tunnels that have been found (there are 4 so far) are big enough to allow tanks to pass. Photos inside the cave were frowned upon, so excuse the shotty photography.

From DMZ

From DMZ

Savannah's newly found claustrophobia sets in.

From DMZ

I'm just clumsy.

From DMZ

Hopefully, you can see how tight the tunnel was.

From DMZ

This was a common site around us. There are mine fields everywhere. We were constantly warned to not stray past any fences, especially at night.

In the next post, we get to look into NK, see the spot of the bloodiest battles of the war, and live the life of a rice farmer that works about 15 feet from the mine field seperating NK and SK.