Day 242: DMZ & 6 Year Anniversary

We originally planned to visit the DMZ on Friday; the tour operator (VIP Travel) was amazing and allowed us to move the tour to Sunday with Kieran’s ankle. And in perfect harmony with our weird personalities, we would be spending our 6th Anniversary touring the De-militarized Zone 😍🥰

The DMZ is the 38th Parallel & border which separates North / South Korea and where troops battled endlessly into a stalemate; this space is technically managed and governed by the United Nations. From the 38th parallel, there is 2 KM distance in each direction for additional civilian protection; still, there are villages, farms, and people who live inside the DMZ. Mary visited the DMZ in 2019 when there was some cooperation between North and South Korea.

Wildly, at the time of our visit, tensions are really high. 1) A stupid idiotic American soldier ran away into North Korea in 2023 to escape military discipline. Thus the Joint Security Area (JSA) tour has been closed for a year; the JSA is where they signed the armistice and an opportunity to meet North Korean soldiers and step on the border. 2) Shots were fired between North and South Korean soldiers in June 2024 in a misunderstanding; however, the event triggered even greater tension

3) South Korea started sending balloons over the border containing USBs with KPOP, Korean Dramas, food, and medicine. North Korea responded by sending over balloons containing trash and waste. South Korea responded by setting up loud speakers to blast propaganda to the citizens over the border. North Korea responded by setting up their own speakers that generate noise and jam sounds (we could hear their speakers while on the tour!!!!)

With tensions this high, we couldn’t do a lot of the best parts of the tour to include the Dora Observatory where you can see a fake North Korean village created by the government to pretend everything is happy and wonderful in the North. We also couldn’t go to Dorasan Station which is a modern train station ready to connect South Korea to the continent once Korea is re-united. These areas were under target due to the South Korean loud speakers.

However, we were still able to visit the Imjingak Park where South Koreans can go to pray for their families return / unification and the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel where North Korea attempted to dig holes to invade South Korea post armistice agreement; the government discovered four tunnels and they believe there is at least 15.

The tour felt a bit empty compared to the 2019 experience and we understand why. It was still really cool to hear the North Korean loud speakers (listen for the casino sounds) and using digital binoculars to see North Korean people walking around. There was also a huge fire inside the DMZ and we saw helicopters dropping water on the location…

To celebrate our anniversary, we visited Gwangjang Market to food hop across vendors to include hand made noodles/dumplings, soy marinated crab, mung bean pancake, and to finally get Kieran to survive the raw live octopus!!! Check out the little girl judging the shit out of Kieran.

After food, we went to Mary’s favorite bar The Fountain and enjoyed a drink before heading home.

Food:
Sausage and Rice Cake
Soy marinated crab
Hand rolled noodles
Mung bean pancake
Raw octopus

Spots:
DMZ
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