Seoul - Day 2

DMZ -- Hungsik University area -- Dongdaemon

Today we booked ourselves on a half day tour of the DMZ - De-Militarized Zone that separates South Korea with North Korea. To be honest, I do not know much about the history behind the separation of one nation into two separate countries so I was very much looking forward to this visit, especially since it will be a breath of fresh air from shopping for skincare and eating kimchi.

After being picked up at our hotel, we were dropped off at Imjingak where rows and rows of tour buses awaits visitors. No one is allowed to visit the DMZ sites on their own. Everyone has to take the bus from Imjingak and once inside the bus, you will be greeted by several tour guides with their own brood of clients speaking in several different languages all at once, which is really distracting.

At Imjingak itself is the remains of this shelled train that was found at Jangdan Village. This steam locomotive was initially carrying supplies to South Korea but was blown up fearing that it would be commandeered by the Chinese. The poor train has more than 1,020 bullet holes and is currently registered as one of the Cultural Heritage of Korea. There is also a mulberry tree planted next to the train and it is the original mulberry plant that was found still living and growing from the train after the explosion. It is re-planted here as a reminder of the resilience of life despite challenges.

The steam locomotive from Jangdan Village

There were countless strips of coloured ribbons lining the fence on Freedom Bridge leading to this locomotive; each of the ribbon containing a message of hope, a prayer for loved ones and faith that one day the reunification of the two nations will become a reality.

From here we went to Dora Observatory where I dropped in a coin and viewed North Korea from the telescope. There were many white buildings but I could not see any signs of life. The tour guide told us that the houses and shops were built as a facade to show the South Koreans that the North Koreans have good facilities and that their people are living comfortably in nice houses. I saw also the battle of the flag poles, with North Korea having won the competition.

Ribbons of hope, peace and reunification

The highlight of the day for me is the visit to the 3rd tunnel. It is believed that there are more than 20 tunnels dug by the North Koreans to invade Seoul but only 4 has been publicly declared by the government. I told my colleagues that the North Koreans must have been damn sore that they spent so much time digging this tunnel with the use of dynamites for over 1,635 metres only to be found by the South Koreans and turned into a money making tourist attraction. I cannot imagine the amount of time spent manually blasting the rocks and shoveling it away with wheel barrows.

There is a 45 degrees sloped walkway built to enable access to the tunnel 72 metres below ground, and for once I am glad that I am vertically challenged for it was much easier to walk through the tunnel without bumping my head on the wooden structures supporting the tunnel, having water dripping down my hair and suffering a backache from bending down for too long. The walk back up the 45 degree incline is NO FUN AT ALL and can prove to be fairly difficult for many who feels claustrophobic and has weak stamina. All I can say is that when I finally saw light, it was the same triumphant feeling I had when I reach Laban Rata after 7 hours of climbing Mount Kinabalu.

This picture of me is at the Dorasan stop at Gyeonggui Railway Station. This is the last railway stop in South Korea before heading to North Korea. It has been built 5 years ago but does not carry any passengers and again, this railway station remains as a beacon of hope that reunification will happen and the Koreans can travel freely. Only a handful of South Korean workers ride on this train to North Korea to assist in the setting up of factories but they are only allowed to enter the factory and nothing more. 

There is a ticketing guy who sells commemorative tickets to tourists as souvenirs for having been to Dorasan.

Me at Dorasan

After the heavy morning, we asked to be dropped off at the Hungsik University area. Apparently shopping is more affordable here due to the students. I can definitely attest to that as our lunch is the cheapest that we've had. It's like a hot pan of super spicy broth with various types of fishballs, nissin noodles, rice sticks and vegetables that costs like RM20 for 4 persons. It was super spicy but was damn good on a chilly day.

Just looking at this again is making my mouth water

The biggest trend that I notice in Seoul is the abundance of couples wearing the EXACT SAME CLOTHES from top to bottom. It is horrendous! They would wear the same shirt, the same pants, the same shoes and sometimes even the same hat or same socks! And they are everywhere! Like dust in the air!

*shakes head

Sample of couple wear - blegh!

Last destination of the day is Dongdaemon. It is another shopping area where I managed to snag myself some earrings, necklaces and a few blouses from one of the malls that houses small individual boutiques; a pretty good concept. Hope someone introduces this to KL soon!

Dinner is another random location. We just looked at photos on the menu and made judgement based on the crowd in the restaurant. So we ended up with this glass noodle dish that came with soft and succulent braised pork. The flavours were really good. The only issue I had with it is that the noodles are cold, as in, it was swimming in an icy broth. There were literally crushed ice in the broth that made it feel a little bit odd. I like my noodles piping hot so icy noodles ain't really my thing.

Can you see the crushed ice?

The 6 of us split into 3 groups; my colleague and her husband went in search of a laptop bag, my Boss and his mom wanted to see Seoul Tower whilst my agency friend and me preferred to shop. Shortly pass midnight, we decided to head home before the trains stop its services. So we hopped back on the train and re-traced our route back. Halfway through the ride, there was an announcement that I obviously did not understand, the train stopped at the next location and everybody got out. Not knowing what is happening, we continued sitting in the train until a train conductor came and shooed us out.

Great.

We are now at an unknown train station in the middle of the night, we have no idea where we are and whether we are near or far from our hotel, we do not speak the local language and there are no cabs in sight! So the two of us sat at the bus stop nearby together with the other train passengers and have zero clue what to do. We realised that even if we managed to hail a cab, we do not know how to tell the cabbie how to get to our hotel for we do not even have the hotel address with us. All we have is the hotel room key card with the name of the hotel and a phone number at the back.

After waiting for almost 30-minutes we figured that we will not be able to improve our chances of making it back to the hotel alive by sitting at the same spot. So we looked around and saw that there is a hotel nearby (with the term "nearby" being very subjective) and rationalise that perhaps we could get a cab there plus get help from the hotel staff to get the address of our hotel. After walking a few streets the hotel was still not in sight and we decided to stop at a Paris Baguette outlet (the concept is similar to DeliFrance) to ask for help. Surprisingly, even though the owner do not understand English he was able to gather from our sign language that we needed him to help us call our hotel and get the address. So the owner of the Paris Baguette not only assisted us to get the address of our hotel but he even came out to explain to the cab driver when he saw that we managed to flag down a taxi. 

THANK YOU Mr Paris Baguette at Yisan. We are forever thankful to you for ensuring that we got home safe and sound. Kamsahamnida!


p.s. This trip was made in mid-May 2011

9/30/2011 11:35:00 PM | Labels: |

 

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