Day by Day with Gina

In Enemy Territory...Almost...

UPDATE FROM SOUTH KOREA
Sunday, January 1, 2006

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Even though most Koreans don't really celebrate our American New Year, I want to wish you a happy one from South Korea.

Ben, Shane, Jason, and I brought in the New Year by visiting the DMZ today. We got up a bit earlier than normal, got ready, and took a taxi to the Songtan subway station. We had seats the whole way into Seoul, which was great. We had to transfer twice to get to Itaewon, where our DMZ tour began. While we were on our last leg of the subway ride, we were actually the only ones in our subway car, except for two Koreans all the way at the other end. This was quite abnormal, as it has been moderately crowded on the subway every time we have ridden it.
Here, you can see our presence in the subway car and the lack of other people around us. This is when we decided to get brave. Ben really wanted to see how much he would sway if he hung from the handles on the subway. He tried, but he was too tall and wasn't able to both hang and keep his feet off the ground. My young and "subtle" sister was then nominated, being the shortest among the four of us.
If you're wondering, she really didn't sway that much. But, we got some fun pictures and the two Koreans on the other end of the car found us very amusing.

We walked briskly out of the subway and found the nearest Burger King so we could grab a quick lunch before our tour began. As we were waiting to cross the street to get to said BK, we took a look at our surroundings. I would say that only 50% of the people I saw on the street were actually Korean (maybe less). In fact, a rather belligerent pair of people in front of us on the crosswalk were speaking language I would expect to hear on an urban streetcorner in the states. It really didn't feel like we were smack in the middle of Korea at that moment, for sure.

We assembled our BK to-go, then met up with our tour guide in the lobby of the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon, which is part of Seoul. Our guide's name was Choi, and when I was making sure I pronounced it correctly, she said, "Like Taster's Choice." I thought that was funny. Not just like "choice," but "Taster's Choice." teehee. I didn't forget her name, though! Maybe that was the reason she picked a mediocre coffee brand to help people pronounce her name correctly.

We got in our van to drive toward the DMZ, and found out we were the only four on today's tour. It was kind of nice, though, since we got to ask a lot of questions and be more comfortable. While we drove the hour-long trip, we ate our BK lunch, talked a lot, saw Korea get colder and colder, and heard some interesting information from our tour guide. One thing she showed us on the way particularly stuck out to me. In the 80s, Koreans used this one large area as a garbage dump. They decided to turn it into something a bit nicer when the Olympics came to Seoul, so they basically covered it up with a bunch of dirt and put a big park and golf course on top of it. So, it's this huge man-made hill covering a mound of old garbage. Kind of weird, if you think about it. But, the mound is still releasing methane gas, which provides the electricity for nearby apartment complexes. Can you imagine? "Yeah, the lights went off again. Guess the garbage dump wasn't decomposing enough today."

We went as far north in South Korea as you can get and stopped at a place called Paju Park. It's kind of the starting point for people wanting to tour the DMZ. The Freedom Bridge is there, as well as several Korean War memorials. What is strange is that they've turned it into a little carnival area. There were kids riding on these carnival rides, in the dead of winter, in the middle of a park that commemorates the Korean War and a very divided nation. It just seemed a but juxtaposed to me.
We walked over to the Freedom Bridge and walked across. The Freedom Bridge is where thousands of POWs were exchanged after the Korean War. There is a kind of shring at the end of the bridge where people hung up items and wrote things. Sometimes I wish I was Data from Star Trek just so I could read all of the different languages, ya know?
We then walked to the war memorials area. The largest one was dedicated to American soldiers who fought in the war, of which Ben's maternal grandfather was one. 30, 000 Americans died in the war, and 5,000 are still unaccounted for. The number of soldiers missing just amazed me. Can you imagine the families of those people who don't know what happened to their husband, father, brother, or son? Can you imagine the old men that still might be prisoners up there, who have lost hope of ever going home? God bless them...
We climbed on the bus and drove over to a spot called The Third Tunnel. Over the years that the DMZ has been in existence, North Korea has tried several times to tunnel into South Korea so it could infiltrate troops and weapons. We were able to actually walk down into the third one that was discovered, called, you guessed it, "The Third Tunnel." It was a pretty steep walk down, then a pretty hunched-over walk through the actual tunnel that the North Koreans dug. We weren't allowed to take pictures down there, unfortunately, but it was basically a damp, stinky, cramped tunnel. I was amazed at how badly North Korea wanted to invade South Korea, just to control it. There are some spiritual implications there that I'm still thinking through...

After hopping back on the bus, we drove over to the Dora Observatory, where you can get a scenic view of the DMZ. The Demilitarized Zone was basically the cease-fire agreement made between North and South Korea. They agreed to draw a line between the two, with a 2 km buffer on each side. So, essentially, the DMZ is a 4km-wide band running from the east side of Korea to the west that has gone untouched by man for over 50 years. As you might imagine, it's quite packed with wildlife and vegetation. Unfortunately for us, we weren't able to see any of it today, even from the Dora Observatory. It is cold, so everything is brown, and it was snowy today, so visibility was very limited. I would guess we could see maybe 100 feet into the DMZ, but the parts we did see were really cool.

Next, we went to the Dorasan Station, which was built just in 2002 by South Korea. It is the northernmost subway station in South Korea. This is an amazing effort by South Korea for reunification. They are incredibly hopeful that the two parts of Korea will reunite someday soon. I asked Choi, "Do you think it will really happen?" She said, "Oh, yes, definitely within my lifetime." I think it shows amazing grace and forgiveness of the people of South Korea to actually want to reunite with a communist nation that wanted to just control them for a really long time. In an effort to show goodwill and a desire to unify, South Korea built the Dorasan station as far north as they could. One day, when they do unify, Koreans will be able to travel by train all the way into China and the European continent. Now, they have to take a plane or ferry to get into China or Russia. The Dorasan station was built using the funds of South Koreans who had some kind of tie to North Korea, whether they lived there before or still had family there.
Our DMZ trip was pretty much over after that. We made a quick stop at the Reunification Village, which was also settled as far north as possible, and we found out that our own Jimmy Carter helped to build some of the housing in that town. We went back to Paju Park, got on our van with our tour guide, and made our way back to Seoul. After an adventurous meandering through the Seoul Station, we got on our subway train toward our Korean home...Songtan.

We decided to end our trip with an old faithful dining experience...Happy Teriyaki! It didn't let us down. I left the restaurant feeling...you guessed it! Happy. We came back to the apartment, packed our lives into suitcases, and went to bed.

In just about an hour, Ben and I will be on a bus toward Incheon National Airport and we'll begin the 24-hour travel back in time toward Atlanta. We make one stop in LA, so wish us luck with the worst airport in America.

Next time on "Korean Days with Gina," we travel back in time!!!

posted by Gina @ 9:22 AM