The DMZ and BBoyz
Stephanie and I had a full Saturday. We were up entirely too early on Saturday morning (before the sun rose), and were over to the USO for a tour trip to the DMZ (demilitarized zone). To save myself a lot of writing, you can read extensively about the DMZ here. In short, the DMZ is a 4km wide strip of land that runs from the West coast to the East coast and divides North and south Korea. In the middle lines the MDL (military demarcation line), which is the actual separation of North and South Korea, I guess. The boundary was made in 1950.We rode to the military base and taken first to slideshow presentation about the history and layout of the area. It gets a little confusing as to whose watchtowers are whose, but then we went to the actual line and it made some more sense. We visited a huge building, and behind it were a row of small buildings where United Nations people meet. Incidentally there is very short concrete line that indicates North and South Korea, and it divides the buildings in two. In this picture, the short buildings are the meeting rooms, and the huge building across is a North Korean post. The soldiers in green are South Korean soldiers:
At the same area, this is a North Korean post:
Our day was overcast and cloudy, so the pictures aren't that great. This is the view over into North Korea. This is Gijeong-dong, or "Peace Village", so ironically named. There are a lot of buildings, but very few people live there, and they think the buildings are just for show. The flagpole is gigantic and their flag is so huge that it cannot be flown in stormy weather or else it will tear. Someone said the dry weight of the flag is 600lbs.
The bridge of no return where after the war captives could choose which side to go to.
Afterward we went to an observatory (which wasn't that great because the fog was so bad), and the "3rd Tunnel". There are 4 known tunnels where the North Koreans have tried to dig into South Korea. This 3rd one you can down into and see.We really enjoyed our trip. The DMZ and the North/South Korean relationship is such a tense and interesting one. When the North/South divide occurred many families were divided and it is interesting to think that this was once one nation with the same cultural and ethnic background but is now divided so intensely.
Saturday night after the trip we headed over to a performance called "B-Boy and the Ballerina". B-Boys are breakdancers and the performance was a mostly nonverbal story of a ballerina who falls in love with a B-Boy. It was a lot of fun and we had a great time, especially because the performance was in such a small place and was very intimate. Breakdancing is really popular here. If you're interested, here's one of the videos I took Saturday night:
posted by Meghan @ 5:56 PM
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