Concerning the rents part one

If any part of my facebook status updates have filtered across the oceans, the entire universe must know that yes, my parents did indeed make it to Soko. I hopped a 3 hour bus to Incheon Airport and yes, pretty much ran through the arrivals section in time to get to their appointed gate and catapult myself in their general direction upon first glance. Quite the surreal moment, having that part of my life mix with this one, especially as this whole experience has been so defined by their separation. It was a twist to see how their presence altered my perspective of this year. But, as always, I'm about five steps ahead of myself. So. Grinning parents on either arm in a disgustingly cheesy Brady Bunch moment, I ushered them back onto the bus and introduced them to Korea. They napped the last half of the way and then I fed them pizza, led them stumbling to my apartment, and basically sent them off to bed. Friday morning, still in blatant disbelief that Mom and Dad were actually here, they accompanied me to work for a quick morning tour of the school. They walked around a bit and met me back for lunch, during which Jaden shrewdly informed my mother, "you strong grandmother." Dad also gave them each a peep for dessert and their perfect manners (if I don't say so myself- though, FINE, to be fair, Korean culture probs had something to do with that...) completely won him over. It was like the moment in Moulin Rouge where the Duke is charmed by Satine and little stars go off in his eyes (MINUS the creepy prostitute older man thing) when they looked up and thanked him oh so politely. He was a goner.

Friday night, we got some food and had a little train picnic dinner on the 180 mph KTX bound towards Seoul. Dad was immediately in awe of the efficiency and cleanliness of Korean public transportation, and yeah, I'll for sure miss it a ton when I go back home. I navigated the easy peasy subway system (remember way back when, in the days when I described it as a wriggling compost pile of worms going every which way? I'm over that and am long past admitting that it is actually ridiculously user friendly, I was just in a bad mood with the whole country...) and, after a few minutes of wandering some ambiguously planned blocks, we easily found our hotel.

The next morning began at 6-- not quite the Saturday wake up one hopes for but worth it considering the day. This, my friends, was DMZ day. We found our tour pretty easily and took about an hour's bus ride north to constant commentary from our chipper guide. Mainly, she gave some background of North and South Korean relations and laid out the itinerary of our day for us. One thing that did impress me in this leg was how freaking close Seoul is to the border. Sure, I've seen the maps, but it's quite different to get 30 mins outside of Seoul and see barbed wire fences connecting military checkpoints that pop up every 100 ft to look out for North Koreans getting across the rivers. They even have these white rocks wedged in the fences at frequent intervals as a simple device to detect where a fence has been disturbed. I could honestly see why the border is so SO heavily fortified (more on that later) and did not wonder that Soko is trying to disperse its capitol a bit to spread out its resources.

Before we even got to the DMZ (we actually only entered it at the very end and its only 4 km wide), we crossed over Unification Bridge which definitely signaled that we were coming to something important. We were still miles from the border, and even the buffer, but we still had a passport check and the we had to weave through about 30 traffic barriers to prevent a car from just gunning across. They mean business.

The first stop was the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. Basically, after the armistice was drawn up that ended the Korean war and divided the peninsula, sneaky North Korea dug at least 4 tunnels (and likely more not yet discovered....a less than comfortable thought...), to try and attack Seoul. These weren't discovered until some years after, during some land exploration in the DMZ when they noticed that the ground was absorbing enough water to suggest a hollow place. When pressed, North Korea first said that the south dug those tunnels to attack the north. Yeah, not so much. We took a little claustrophobic but cool tram down an access chute and came out into the real tunnel. The tourism board had painted over every dynamite trace with yellow so that they could be easily seen and the dynamite blasts really obviously point towards the south even to a complete defense or ballistics novice such as moi. Also, the tunnel has a slight but definable slant towards the north to allow water to drain. Tunnel 101 apparently teaches that you don't dig down, you dig back up. So...nice try Noko. The second excuse was that actually yes, we did do it, haha isn't that funny, but don't worry, it was for coal mining. They even put coal residue on the walls to prove it...despite the fact that the residue washed out with rain and the entire area is made up of solid granite. The chilling conclusion is that Noko did have some tricks up its sleeve which is doubly so considering that with all of the tunnels combined, they could move 30,000 troops through the border in the space of an hour. It was really interesting being down there just to be faced with proof of this dramatic relationship....if the barbed wire signs dotting every surface since Unification Bridge with the bright red "MINE" triangle weren't enough.

The next stop was Dora Observatory. The buses aren't allowed there when it is even remotely snowy because it's on the top of a hill and if the bus should slide off a slope, it could very definitely explode on a mine. So. There you go. It was reeeeeally foggy so we didn't see that much but some hazy outlines, but technically we did see into North Korea. First on the Soko side of things, we saw Freedom Village which is a special status community of South Korean citizens who lived in the DMZ before the war that have been accorded special permission to stay there. Because it is so so close to the border, they are protected by ROK (Republic of Korea, and how's that for an acronym?) soldiers at all times, even when farming the fields. They have a curfew and ID cards but in exchange, they don't pay tax or do military service. Freedom Village has a huge Soko flag atop this flag pole. Not to be outdone, Noko raised a corresponding flag that not only topped it but made the Guinness Book of World Records. Its flagpole lies in what Soko has termed "Propaganda Village" because they wanted to upstage Freedom Village and prove how prosperous they are. So, the buildings are all neat and matched with gray walls and blue roofs (we did see it through telescopes). Two problems though, there are no people and the windows don't ever glow at night and hence are painted on. So again, nice try Noko. We also saw Noko's "Kesong Industrial Complex" which is the single joint economic venture of the North and South. In a highly controlled maneuver, the south sends raw materials and managers across the border and takes back finished clothing. The few South Koreans who do commute there for work do it on rare occasion from Seoul and are basically the only ones from their country allowed in. Rumor has it that the managers gave their workers a choco pie and some OJ and none of them ate it because they wanted to bring it home to share with their families. A lot of this could very well be southern bias but the vibe rings true from what I've heard. Noko life is preeeetty bleak. The men have 10 year long military service, the women have 7, then they work factories for insufficient rice and food vouchers and literally one dollar a day.

After that, we stopped at the last train station in South Korea, even though the track is connected through North Korea up into China. It's weird, there's a huge brand new section to process international luggage that is just completely closed off and lying in sterile disuse. They have this potential map on the wall that connects the trains by land to the Transiberian Railway all the way to Madrid, Paris, and London...though it would take 3 weeks. Still, it does drive the point home that Soko is connected by land to all of this but Noko has made it an island. Unification could certainly work some changes, to say the least.

Then, lunch time. We had a great bulgogi stew (Korean beef) with mushrooms and veggies and mom and dad tried to acclimatize to floor seating. That venture never quite reached success during the whole of their visit no matter how they tried, to the pity of their joints. It was yummy. We walked for a bit and then on to our next stop...Imjinlak Park. This park was established to comfort the southern citizens separated from their families by the armistice. It's the northernmost area that most South Koreans really get to their relatives. On Chuseok and Lunar New Year, they come here to bow to their ancestors, facing north. There were all of these prayer ribbons tied along the length of the barbed wire fence, very moving and sad.

Then, off to Camp Boniface which is the briefing area for the DMZ and for the JSA (joint security area- the epicenter, where North and South Korean soldiers stand nose to nose). There, we got a very dramatic overview of DMZ history and got turned over to our military bus and got our security badges that identified us as military guests- as in, please don't shoot us, we're civilians.

Then, we hopped in a bus, crossed into the DMZ, and crossed into the JSA. The JSA essentially is a 600 m circle with the demarcation line right in the middle that houses both North Korean and South Korean soldiers. This is where the peace talks happen and where any diplomatic meetings happen between the two countries. In the past, soldiers from both sides freely passed through the entire JSA. However, an incident occurred when the South Korean army chopped down a huge poplar that was obscuring the view between two southern security checkpoints. The Noko army didn't quite like that...so they took the axe and chopped two soldiers to death. Yeeeeeeah. So, after that, even the JSA was strictly divided with clear markers and a cement line between the key buildings.

We were not allowed to stand up in the bus until allowed and the engines kept running the entire time, in case we needed to make a hasty exit. We were ushered in partners up into a big entrance building which was originally built for families to rendezvous. Then, we dashed out into a little open area and into the peace talk building that straddles the demarcation line. We had 3 soldiers keeping tabs on the 15 of us in the room, all standing like military dolls with clenched fists held in front of them and requisite sunglasses. We did get to cross the line in the building and take pictures through the window back at South Korea, but couldn't go to the extreme end, where there was a final ROK soldier and a door. If we went behind the guy, we were told it was at our own risk as if a northerner decided to open it and kidnap us, he couldn't pull us back. We stepped back out and saw a northern soldier looking at us through binoculars from a building about 50 ft back. Then, we dashed behind this granite wall to look at the buildings for a bit so that we could duck back down if they started shooting. Huh. We got back on the military bus, and were driven to the site of the axe murder thing and then saw the Bridge of No Return right by the security checkpoint they were trying to protect. The bridge is overgrown with brush and is so named because after the war, POWs had to decide which side they'd remain on but the choice was permanent. Now, that security checkpoint is unmanned because it's too dangerous. It's isolated from the others and no one knows really what's on the other side of the bridge because the visibility is so bad.

The way back our tour guide also went over some security features of the DMZ. There are the obvious defenses- barbed wire and LOTS o mines, but there's also a lot of tank barriers which are essentially cement arches covering all of the roads that connect North Korea with the south. If needed, they have holes for dynamite to detonate and make a hassle for any invaders.

Overall, I expected the hype to surpass what I actually experienced but yeah, it was tense. The mood certainly wasn't helped by the warship fiasco. About a month ago, a South Korean warship was sank somewhere off of the coast of Korea, close to the demarcation line. About 46 people died and the government has been really closed off with evidence and the investigation. The press has ruled out an on-board accident, however, which sort of leaves an unfortunate brush with a leftover mine from the war or a less accident torpedo. Eek. A lot of South Koreans I've talked to still hope for reunification because of the separated families and shared ancestry, even considering the economic toll, and even beyond thoughts of bringing the two sides back together, an act of war would noooot be a good thing or easy to respond to. Anyways, the rules, passport checks, briefings and military escorts did make an impression. It's the most fortified border in the world and I definitely felt it and learned a lot about N/S relations.

That night, we made our tired little way back home for some Chinese and bed. The next morning, we slept in and had brunch and then went back to Gyerongsan Mountain to show the rents a temple. It was lively, and we took a lovely lovely hike up to some waterfalls. I finally saw a perfect view of Asian mountains- really spiky with some sparse, articulately placed winding trees. It looked like a painting. On the way down, some old men beckoned Dad and me over for some mokkoli and fed us some meat bits. Mine was a knub of something...we'll call it pig tail. I refuse to dwell on alternatives, for that way lies madness. For real lunch, we had bibimbap and pahjung (spring onion pancake). Mm mmm. To give our feet some rest, we went and had a nice minnow nibble at Dr. Fish and then came home and relaxed.

To give your poor eyes and attention some rest, the duration of their wonderful stay is to be continued...