My Travel Adventures: DMZ Day

We went to the DMZ today. What is DMZ? It's the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea. A bit of the history..... so during the Korean War, they established the 38th parallel line as the line that divides North Korea and South Korea as a compromise to cease the war. Our guide says the war did not end on July 27, 1953 - it's still going on right now. It's a cold war. The ultimate goal is reunification of one Korea.

The Demilitarized Zone is a place that we can go visit, but it has to be through a tour. They said that it's not easy for Koreans to visit because they'll have to be interviewed by the South Korean government and the process takes a very long time, so most of them don't want to try. But it's easier for foreigners to go.

So there is this DMZ area that is neutral, which is occupied by North Korea, South Korea, and UN. They have several buildings there, in which one is where they hold meetings between the two countries, and few buildings where are now quite abandoned. In this area, there are also two villages where each is occupied by each country. The one from the South produces a lot of rice, which is only sold around the area, and they say the farmers make $80,000 a year... but they need to stay on premise for at least 2/3 (I don't remember the number of days) of the year in order to continue to be that area's resident. They call the village occupied by the North Propaganda Village, because it is only built to show that the North is normal, when there is no one living there. However, they said that recently, there has been some soldiers and civilians living there now.

Our tour started with us driving all the way up to 38th parallel line..

And then entering the first check point by South Korea. The solider comes on the bus to check our passport before we enter.

After that, we went to the second check point, which is by the UN (no pictures there). Then we were taken to a briefing room where they show us the history of the Korean War and also some incidents that had happened in the DMZ after the zone has been established. Then, we were taken to the Panmunjom, which is the building where they hold the meetings.

It was quite scary, because they had very strict orders of what you can and cannot do. First thing before you even arrive, you have to make sure your dress code is appropriate. No holed/faded jeans, shorts, sleeveless shirts, military styled anything, only closed toed shoes (which explains my weird outfit because I didn't bring dress shoes), no hand gestures, no talking to any soldiers, no mocking gestures, etc. We also had to walk in two lines, no carrying any bags with us except phone or camera in our hand (we put our passports and wallets in our pockets. My skirt has pockets!).

When we arrived at the Panmunjom, we were to face that direction, and only take pictures of anything in that direction. We can't turn towards the left and right and take pictures of those things.

It was kind of weird because we saw people in the large building looking towards us and talking.... we think they're from North Korea, but we're not sure.

We went into this T2 building, which is a conference room. They said that the microphone on the conference table is wired to record 24 hours a day, and that table divides the North and South Korea side. And yes, we crossed over to the North Korea side to take some pictures. There were two soldiers in there guarding the place. You cannot go past them, or you'll be arrested (or at least detained). Our tour was cut short because they saw some North Korean soldiers walking towards the room with some civilian look alike people (they think it's high officials). The guide said she has never seen that before.....

I was gonna post pictures here, but I'm kind of scared what may happen... so I'll show you guys the pictures if you're interested later!

After that, we went to a tourist area where they showed the remains of Korean War.

And then we had lunch, which is bulgogi with DMZ rice (rice grown in DMZ). I've come to realize that when they say bulgogi in Korea, sometimes they meant bulgogi eaten in a soup style instead of grilled on fire style we're used to in KBBQ in US.

That's the DMZ rice. There's a lot of this yellow thing in there... I'm guessing it's sprouted? I'm not super sure..

After the bus dropped us off at the meeting location, which is in Myeongdong, we went shopping in the LOTTE department store. But first, we entered through the Star Avenue, which is, I guess in a way similar to star walk in Hollywood. But only a selected few groups/stars did this.

When you put your hand on their handprint, the TV next to it will play a short clip of the star waving to you.

And then I finally ate the Pablo cheesecake. It was quite good..... it's like jello on top with light cheesecake inside. The crust is more like puff pastry.

And then two of us decided to go to visit all the entertainment companies in Gangnam. This is JYP. Just the way it looked in the videos..

This is FNC.... which I don't really know, but I know this person is from CN Blue..

And then SM, which has a ton of groups.

There were a lot of girls just hanging out in the buildings or parks across from these companies in hopes of seeing the stars come out of the building. So scary....

And then I saw this Got7 poster made by the fans at a bus stop.

I think it said something about happy 6th year anniversary on top..

And then we went really into Gangnam.

And shopped at Kakao Friends stores. It's not as big as I thought a flagship store should be. Maybe I'm thinking of New York sized flagship stores.... However, they have this new line of Kakao Friends called Little Friends now. Basically all the Kakao characters when they were babies! So cute!