Category Archives: Travel

In May, 2012 I went to Asia on the “Three-Countries-Three-Weeks-Three-Kids” tour. The first stop on this once-in-a-lifetime trip was Shanghai, followed by Seoul. Day One in Seoul, we made our way to the Gyeongokgung Palace museum with all of its attendant palace buildings from various eras. On Day Two, following a somber morning looking at  the War History Museum, we went to a baseball game. Day Three we went on an all-day trip to one of the creepiest places I’ve ever been, the DMZ that divides North and South Korea.

After seeing the UN buildings in Panmunjoem, it was time for lunch. Our bus went to a roadside stop that looks like it’s there strictly to service all of the tour buses going to the DMZ. A Stuckeys this was not! There was a war memorial monument, a small temple (much like the third picture down here), the equivalent of truck stop mini-market & souvenir shop all rolled into one (not a classy joint!), and a couple of packed restaurants.

This was the point where I could here my mother in my head, like a character out of a Chevy Chase movie, saying, “No way I’m going in there and eating that!” So, of course, I went in and ate. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in these travelogues, when travelling overseas I will never eat at a conventional Western food place (McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, whatever) unless for some reason it’s the only option and I’m about to drop from hunger. I can eat that at home, if I’m in Rome, I’m going to eat like the Romanians!

At a Korean restaurant, you often cook your own food at the table. (I also saw this in Shanghai.) Two to a table, we had a butane burner & skillet with a bunch of beef and onions, with a whole selection of other peppers and stuff to either stew along with the beef or to eat separately. I’m told that this dish is “bulgogi” and it’s very common and popular in Korea.

It was fantastic! Go find a Korean restaurant and have bulgogi!

And try the kimchi. All I knew of kimchi was what I had learned from old “M*A*S*H” episodes, where it was described as fermented sauerkraut, often fermented in earthen jugs that were buried for days and weeks to ripen. It sounded disgusting. But when in Kaesong… I’m here to tell you, kimchi was a wonderful surprise. I’ve even started buying it back at home from time to time, when I can find it.

After lunch we went to the DMZ Pavilion at Paju. There’s a line of tourists waiting to get their picture taken in front of this, like they were at Disneyland or the Grand Canyon. (Yes, I did it too.)

There are sculptures about the reunification of the two Koreas that everyone hopes will eventually come.

This is also the site of “The Third Tunnel Of Aggression,” a place where in 1978 the South Koreans caught the North Koreans digging long tunnels from their side of the border into South Korea. You grab a hard hat and head down a really, REALLY steep tunnel that’s wet and slippery. OSHA would love this place!

The tunnels were wide enough for a whole division of 10,000 troops to move through in an hour. (It may not look like it here, because the shoring material  and other equipment keep the tourists on a narrow course in the middle.) The North Koreans tried to claim that the tunnels had been built by the South Koreans to invade the North, but that was pretty obviously not the case. Then the North Koreans tried to claim that they were coal mines. The South Koreans pointed out that there was no coal anywhere nearby, but the tunnel walls had been painted black to look like coal.

I’m not sure that the North Koreans ever had a response for that, other than “Unt uuhh! Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

Of course, what they don’t warn you of before you go down, is that after walking 400 or 500 feet underground in that really steep tunnel to get in, you now have to walk back up it in order to get out. It’s quite the little climb. Emptying out into a gift shop, of course.

Near the Third Tunnel Of Aggression (I love that name!) is the Dora Observation point. From here you can look across the DMZ into North Korea. It’s easy to see North Korean troop sites, towns, and a large city that was built there purely for propaganda and show. (No one actually lives there.)

What you can NOT do at the Dora Observatory is take pictures — if you’re on the far side of that yellow line. Yeah, they really, REALLY mean it, and they’ve got guys with guns to convince you they’re serious. If you’re caught, they’ll take your camera and you’ll never see it again, period. Or worse.

The reason is because they don’t want to give out any intelligence to the North Koreans. There’s a large wall at the edge of the cliff with those big observation binoculars. From in back of the yellow line, the only pictures you can take would be of North Korea off in the distance. Get any closer and take pictures over the wall looking down, and you’ll be taking pictures of South Korean military positions and roads. Then you go on the internet (like me!) and post them, not realizing that you just gave the North Koreans free tactical information if they ever do decide to invade.

Yet another reminder that this truly is not Disneyland or the Grand Canyon.

After a long day, we headed back to Seoul, watching the rice paddies on the South Korean side of the Han River and the mountains and fortifications on the distant North Korean side.

We also got harangued all the way back about some jewelry store that had the best this and the finest that. We weren’t completely surprised to find that our bus didn’t go back to the hotel where we had been picked up that morning, but back to this magical, special jewelry store for a visit. They would take us back to the hotel after everyone had used this unique opportunity to go buy something. Our guide was probably joking about the bus not leaving until everyone actually HAD bought something. Probably. We didn’t have a car waiting or anything, so we just went hunting for a subway station and bailed.  Gotta love mass transit!

The next morning I was off to Inchon International to finish my stay in Korea. (The transit through Inchon, if you’ll remember, is why I couldn’t donate blood for a whole year, despite the fact that I was never outside or anyplace where where I could have been exposed to malaria.) Inchon is a lovely airport and I saw my first Airbus 380 there as we were taxiing out.

Two countries and two kids down, one to go.

In May, 2012 I went to Asia on the “Three-Countries-Three-Weeks-Three-Kids” tour. The first stop on this once-in-a-lifetime trip was Shanghai, followed by Seoul. Day One in Seoul, we made our way to the Gyeongokgung Palace museum with all of its attendant palace buildings from various eras. On Day Two, following a somber morning looking at  the War History Museum, we went to a baseball game. 

Day Three in South Korea was an all-day trip out of Seoul to what is apparently the biggest tourist attraction in the country, the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) meeting rooms at Panmunjeom.

Seoul is a busy, crowded, bustling, modern city of eleven million people. Thirty-five miles away is a very large North Korean army that is poised every day to attack, held back only by the very large armies of South Korea and the United States. It’s easy to forget that as a tourist, but the South Koreans have it in the backs of their minds constantly. Remember, the Korean War did not end in 1953, only a truce was signed. It’s a truce that’s held (more or less) for 61 years, but it’s still only a truce.

As a tourist, you can’t just rent a car and go up to the DMZ. Access is severely restricted and while there are several tour companies that can take you there, reserve a spot well in advance. You’ll meet up early (we were there at 7AM-ish, I think) and get bused to the DMZ. I got a kick out of the frills and beads decorating the bus’ interior. This wasn’t Greyhound or Trailways!

Following the Han River as it flows toward the Yellow Sea to the northwest, there are bridges every mile or so.

But just a few miles outside of the city, the banks are now lined with razor wire and there are barriers set up across the river to catch anything coming upstream. In the past there have been instances where small groups of North Korean soldiers have tried to come up the river to make trouble. It’s very much an armed border.

The road finally takes you to where the other side of the river is no longer South Korea, but North Korea. (There are guard towers all along the river as well.) This was our first glimpse across the border.

Once you reach the site where the negotiations were held in 1953, you see the blue huts that were built then and still stand today. There are a lot of restrictions on what you can wear and warnings about how you can act. Once you get to this point you are probably being filmed by the North Koreans on the other side. If you’ve got a provocative slogan on your T-shirt, or you’re wearing something skimpy, or if you generally act like an idiot, you may be the star of the next North Korean propaganda documentary, proving to the North Korean people how decadent the Western world is.

You can see a concrete curb running between buildings, halfway down from each end. That’s the border. There are always three North Korean soldiers on guard here and three US/South Korean Joint Forces troops watching them. You may safely assume that everyone involved has instantaneous access to a lot of firepower and all of those guns are loaded and locked.

There are places to be a goofy tourist, places to be respectful as a tourist, and then there’s this place, the ultimate “No Bullshit” zone. Step over that line and you create an international incident and it will be months or years before you get out of that North Korean jail cell, if you get out. There are no jokes here, no fooling around, no “yeah, right, they don’t really mean that.” Yeah, they do. People get killed here.

Many of those who have gotten killed have been North Korean soldiers, trying to defect to the South. We were told that’s why the two in the middle, just barely on their side of the border, face each other, and the third one faces the building behind them. Their primary purpose isn’t to prevent an attack by our soldiers. They’re there with shoot-to-kill orders if the other guy or any North Korean tourists try to defect. It happens, and yes, they do shoot them dead right there. (It’s something that happens every few years, not every few days — but you never know if today’s the day for the next one.)

This is the really huge tourist center on the North Korean side with all of the security cameras and soldiers with binoculars and cameras on the top. It also has groups of North Korean tourists, visiting pretty much the same way we were. We can only assume that these were very carefully selected, highly trusted citizens and Party members who were judged to be low risks for defection.

I’m betting their screening process is stricter than ours was.

Sometimes, not all of the time, but sometimes you’re allowed to go into the main negotiations room, the center of the three blue buildings. On the right of this picture is South Korea, on the left is North Korea. In this room and only in this room you are allowed to step foot into North Korean territory. The border runs right down the middle of the table.

Once you step across into the North Korean side inside the negotiating room, you can look out the window and see the North Korean soldiers.

This was a creepy, tense place. The odds of anything disastrous (like the start of World War III, or even an attempted defector being gunned down before your eyes) is pretty low — but they’re most certainly non-zero by a lot more than you’re used to on a daily basis. Our side or their side, these are people you do NOT want to screw with.

It was sort of like being at the zoo or a wild animal park, with deadly snakes and large predators (lions and tigers and bears, oh my!) wandering around loose, all with no glass or cages between you and them. You’re told that they’re quiet and well-fed, but you’re also given a long list of things to avoid doing so that they don’t get pissed off and start striking and killing.

It wasn’t hard to stay focused here. You might not have been in a location or circumstance where you could die in the next minute — but you could see it from here.