War & Peace

We are teachers first and travellers second; teachers because it's our job and travellers because we love it. This weekend we did the most touristic thing yet. We went on a tour, with an actual tour guide. It's the only way to see this part of Korea, you are not allowed to go there alone, and even with a tour guide you must enter at your own risk. I'm talking about the DMZ, the De-militarized Zone that marks the most fortified border in the world between North and South Korea. And here it is, that's North Korea in the fog behind us. Lovely, isn't it? We could see it a bit better in person, but not much. It wasn't the best day to be looking at a 4-km stretch of land (i.e. from where we were standing, there was 2 kms of no-man's land from South Korea to the actual border and 2 more kms between the border and North Korea). Even with the telescopes, the view wasn't much better. So that's the closest we'll ever get to North Korea although we were able to get a North Korean stamp in our passports even though we didn't enter the country itself. We also went into a long, damp, rocky tunnel that is called an infiltration tunnel that the North Koreans dug as a way to invade South Korea. It was never used for any attacks because it was discovered before it was completed, and now South Korea has turned it into a tourist attraction. It is odd to be in this part of Korea, because there is this whole aura about having to protect South Korea from what the communists to the north will do; there are soldiers everywhere on alert, and yet there are tourists all around. It's wierd. There are photography restrictions in this part of Korea and we couldn't get any pictures of the tunnel. You aren't supposed to take pictures of military personnel either, but I guess this soldier got the short end of the duties today because he was standing around for tourists to use him as a model. There are also many memorials in this part of Korea. This is one of the most colourful. To balance out the theme of war on Saturday, we went to a more peaceful setting on Sunday to get some yin to correspond with our yang. We went to Jogye-sa Temple, which is the only temple in the heart of Seoul and the ancient wooden buildings are surrounded by glass highrises. There seems to be a lot of renovation going on in Korea these days and this temple was no exception. The main building was covered in scaffolding, so it wasn't much to look at, but here is a picture of me infront of the really big door watching the old ladies inside praying to Buddha. A few other things we came across this weekend on our travels in Seoul are the tallest building in South Korea called DLI 63 (the number representing the number of stories). No it wasn't built by Donald Trump, but a much shorter one just down the road was.We also came across the Olympic Torch quite by accident. It isn't in Olympic Park, as we expected, but rather in the middle of the business district surrounded by these highrises.