Seoul, Korea
Woke up at 5 am. I guess the napping rested me more than I had thought. Feel refreshed this morning. Did email, had coffee, showered, dressed, and then went to talk to the concierge about tours in Seoul.
I went to the concierge and booked a full day tour to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) between South and North Korea. Fortunately, they had a space. Ed Riley from Shanghai had told me this was really interesting. And it was.
I went to the lobby at 8 am to meet the tour and we left shortly after. We met up with the tour guide, Jung, half way across the city due to the intense morning traffic in the city - it really is unbelievable. She explained things about Korea on the way to the north. Like the Korean flag - the yin and yang (blue on the bottom for water, and red on the top for the sun) and 4 figures around the edge representing, air, earth, water, and fire. Rose of Sharon is the national flower - my mother loved those! Also there are 50M people in South Korea and 30M people in North Korea. We saw a lot of the strip mining of trees in the North as we drove along the river. The cu down the trees for fuel. They have blackouts a lot since there is not enough electricity.
It took about 1 1/2 hours to get up to the DMZ.
We went to Imgingak Park first. You can see the Freedom Bridge from here that goes into the north from here. Families gather in Korea at Thanksgiving and Christmas eve and this is a popular meeting spot.
We then went through a military checkpoint where they had to check all passports. No photos were allowed.
We went to the "Third Tunnel". The North Koreans dug 4 tunnels (found so far) after the war as they were planning to invade the south despite the armistice. It is blocked now (and I mean really blocked with concrete, dynamite, etc on both sides of the DMV). We walked down a steep slope to the tunnel. I had to stoop most of the way to keep from hitting my head but we all had had hats on. I can see why they have us wear those. The tunnel is 358 meters deep. Fascinating. The North Koreans even spread black soot on the walls to pretend that this was an old coal mine even though there is no coal around these parts!
We went to the Dora Observation Platform where we looked out on North Korea. No pictures though - the guards will take your camera and delete all pictures if they see you take one.
Then we went to Dorasan Station. This was build by South Korea for "the future". Instead of calling it the last stop north, they call it the first stop to the north. They built this for the future. They have a vision that some day South Koreans can leave the Korean peninsula on a train and go all of the way to Europe. George W Bush was here to help promote their vision in 2002.
We then went to the Unification Village - the compulsory shopping stop. They were pushing Soju, a Korean liquor.
We then got back to Imgingak Park and to our van. We headed back to Seoul. Wnt to an amethyst factory - another shopping visit. then to the Ginseng Center - interesting but the Korean ginseng is very expensive so I didnt buy any.
Jung dropped us off at Insadonggil - a large shopping street. Had a pastry and coffee and walked around for a long time. Found a bank - that was tough as not many words are in English including the names of businesses.
Jung told me that the Korean alphabet has 18 consonants and 12 vowels. I had always thought it was a symbol language like Japanese but it isn't.
Walked all through downtown and back to the hotel. Had 2 Hite beers (Korean) and went to the room to rest. Will head out for dinner later.
Seoul is an incredibly clean city - there isn't trash to be seen on the street. And no trash cans either. What they do have are some recycling cans here and there but not many of them. I don't know what people do with their trash, but they are well behaved for a large city.
A light dinner and to bed early. I guess the jet lag was worse than I had thought. The full moon over Seoul last night was spectacular. Huge full red ball moving across the sky. Beautiful.
A good adventurous day.
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