Well, there would be two more days of group sight-seeing left on this trip... DMZ/Yanghwajin, and Suwon Castle... Today was DMZ day and a visit to Yanghwajin.
Got up, met at Dongan church...
...The Milkis brothers came ready... :P
We were each assigned a 'life-line' translator... I walked up to Pastor Park while he was giving out assignments, and I got Rebecca as my life-line. Looks like I get her all to myself. :D I wonder if Pastor Park was thinking anything, b/c he could have just as easily given me Jason JDSN, or Silvia, b/c they both were standing right next to me.
Then we were off... All six of us, plus Bong-Min (aka 'Shi-Bong'), Rebecca, Silvia, Jason JDSN, Pastor Park, Elder Kim (yeah, I know I'm being inconsistent with my titles... I was then, too. :P ), Jong-Hyun and Raia's host family.
On the way, the car was pretty quiet... The Nicks and Bong-Min were in the furthest seat back, and passed out. Jong-Hyun, Rebecca and I were in the next seat up, and Jong-Hyun was being SUPER quiet. Strange... He's normally really loud, lively and entertaining... Guess that's just in his comfort zone, and not around big kids. :P Then Silvia, MeriKim and Raia were in the next seat up... They were kinda noisy. Haha... Silvia is pretty entertaining and totally brought out the 'girly' from MeriKim and Raia. Jason JDSN was driving us, and David was sitting shotgun, and unusually quiet. I think he had passed out, too.
But, while were going, I was thinking about the DMZ. How is this supposed to be 'fun?' I could understand the significance of going to see it, but some ppl were acting like it'd be fun. :S Kinda... Weird. I was thinking, military, armed guards, leftover relics from the Korean War... Landmines, sniper towers... Sounds like fun? I don't know. While we were driving, I noticed we were driving along a river for quite some time. Nobody else seemed to notice that it was fenced off and the fence was topped with 3' of barbed wire and had guard towers every half mile, some with armed guards. :S I asked what was across the river, and I got the answer I was expecting: North Korea. Later, I would find out that that length of river was chained-off and guarded because North Korea had used mini-subs to try to launch sneak attacks or drop off troops onto South Korean soil before. Lovely.
We stopped at Imjingak. You're not allowed to take personal cars near the DMZ, so you have to take a guided tour bus to get there. So, this is the place to get tickets to a tour... And it was strange.
Some traditional stuff, memorial things... Yeah, expected...
Big fence. Umm... What's on the other side? All military-operated stuff.
...A theme park? And souvenir shop? I might have thought restaurants would have been strange, but I realized that if there is open space anywhere, Koreans will build a restaurant on it. :P
Making a business out of the DMZ. :S
Time to eat! Raia 'just happened' to need to switch seats with Rebecca, so she'd end up right across from me. :) I really wonder what she's thinking (Rebecca) at this point... She's gotta know something's up. But, still, I didn't get any response in either direction. :S At least I have another girl with an eye/ear out... Anyways... Everyone seemed to get ramen, though I got naengmyun [naengmyun is cold noodle - really good on hot days!], Rebecca got naengmyun and David got a kimbap. We wolfed down our food, then it was out to the tour bus...
The first stop on this tour was... a security checkpoint. We were here for a while, actually. I was chatting with Rebecca (sat right next to her, naturally...) about how I was kind of a little nervous about the visit... I didn't want to step on a land mine or something, and all the armed guards all around didn't make this feel like it was completely 'safe.' I was hoping to get some sort of 'I'm-also-nervous' response out of her, but to my surprise, she was just like, 'nah.' She was telling me how at her all-girls high school, her one teacher made them all take some sort of army-training course, and she learned how to hold and fire a gun and stuff like that. :S Well, then... Haha...
The first 'real' stop was at a... uhh... exhibition? I guess... It was a small complex built around one of the five discovered tunnels that the North Koreans had bored under the DMZ in preparation for an invasion of South Korea. This one was Tunnel 3. We went into the little museum thing, and then watched this really weird movie about the DMZ. It was like, trying to say how peaceful the DMZ was... How it's a symbol of peace and is a precursor to the reunification of Korea. It had really dramatic voice narration (sounded like propaganda from the '50s) and used really dramatic movie-language, like the DMZ was going to be the next summer blockbuster or something. ...Sure, ok. :P There were some interesting facts about the DMZ, though. It's 4km of space, centered on the actual division line between North and South Korea. Nobody can live there, so the wildlife flourishes there. It's the cleanest part of Korea.
So, after the movie... We actually went INTO the tunnel. We had to take everything electronic off of us and put it in a little locker, and no pictures were allowed. Then we put on hard hats and it was a lonnnng, steep descent (quite literally 40 degrees or so) down to the tunnel, and then it was just... walking. And the tunnel was really low... I had to hunch the whole time! It wasn't very wide, either. My back was achin' after. Those North Koreans are freaking short! How were they going to get anything besides really short infantry through those tunnels? I think some of the other tunnels were larger or something, b/c/ they were supposed to have been wide enough to fit artillery through. Still... After going who knows how far into the tunnel, there is a blockade with a guard, and then you just turn around and come back out. Was quite a work out for the calves...
I guess this 'town' or whatever you want to call it was 'Paju.' Not really much of a town if you asked me...
After, we hopped back on the bus and went to the next stop...
Never really got the name of where this stop was, but it was right on the DMZ and you could actually see into it, and even see across it on a clear day and see into North Korea.
They were really anal about pictures... There was a yellow line that was just labelled 'photo line' or something. I didn't see it and walked right up to the ledge to take a picture. A solider hurried over and talked to me and made me delete the picture. :P Apparently, you could only take pictures from behind the 'photo line'... I tried to get a higher shot from behind the line w/Jong Hyun on my shoulders, but almost got yelled at again. :P Always pushing things to the limit... Haha... Anyways.. It was hazy, so we couldn't see North Korea. Still... The DMZ looked... interesting. There were some dirt roads... And it looked clean and well kept. I was expecting like, a jungle or something.
This was a legal picture. :P
Troop outpost or something. Not really sure. But, it was back to the bus after this...
...And then it was off to this 'peace park.'
It was actually pretty creepy.
It was really clean. Like, spotless clean. And really quiet, except for some classical music playing over loudspeakers...
Monuments all over...
...And yet, plenty of military buildings in plain view with a big fence around.
"Peace Park"... But, seemed more like an internment camp or something. :S
Some weird artwork was around...
Peace? It might help a little if the figures weren't rusting.
Seriously. Creepy.
You laugh b/c it looks like a giant sperm...
But... It actually is a giant sperm. :P Sperm and water drops. :S O-kaaaaaay...
Next stop... The last train station out of Seoul! It had guards on duty, who were happy to let us take pictures with them. They were probably bored out of their mind.
He was actually taking that call. :P
MeriKim is a little happy here. He didn't seem to be upset about this. :P
This was a giant list of people who contributed to the park/display, and maybe even the train station?
Korail and the planned map for sending the train into North Korea after unification.
The ladies in front of the station...
Me and our lovely translators...
Little commemorative stamp things. You could get souvenirs here, too. I was confused about whether the train actually ran here or not... I assumed it was just built, but no trains actually ran here. For one, you couldn't get this far without going through security... And two, why would you go here? However, I guess it could be used for military transport, so I dunno. But I really doubt it was open to the public.
...Our last stop... This was the 'unification village.' All there was to see was a souvenir shop and little convenience mart. So I took a picture of the baby Coke bottles.
The outside of the shop...
...And the 'village.' Kinda creepy. There were actual residents here. They got paid by the government to live here, just so they could say that people lived here. Propaganda runs on both sides, I guess. North Korea has a village on the other side of the DMZ (which is visible to South Korea) which is super clean, and colorful and stuff... But, nobody actually lives there.
Back to Imgingak, and there were a few more things to see...
You could pay money to ring that 'peace bell.'
This bridge goes right into North Korea....
Of course, it's barricaded. But, people leave stuff on it... Prayers and things.
If you look off to the side, you can see a Korea-shaped lagoon-pool-thing... Going kind of far with the symbolism, here. :P
On top of the main building, you could take some pictures...
A better look at the weird amusement park... Which was deserted.
...And that was that. Nothing too dramatic or exciting happened... Nobody stepped on any landmines or anything like that, thankfully. I dunno how I felt about this whole thing... You can't say 'peace peace' and have armed guards walking around everywhere. The DMZ is still a symbol of war... Things yet unresolved. Compromise. North Korea's repeated attempts to invade and circumvent the 'security' of the DMZ doesn't help the cause much, either. And really, until the North and South are reunited and the DMZ is gone, then both countries could say 'peace has been achieved.' It's a tragedy, really... Ahh... politics. I hate politics.
After, we all jumped in the car and were on our way back to Seoul. We were going to see Yanghwajin, which is maybe the most significant Christian site in South Korea. 'Yanghwajin' means something like 'beheaded mountain,' and it makes South Korea the country with the second highest number of saints, behind the Vatican. The story goes something like, there were missionaries in the 19th century spreading the gospel to Korea. At one point, some Confucian temples were burned down because of zeal... But, the government did not take kindly to that, and as a result, they put to death every Christian they could find. They took them to this area, cut their head off and tossed it to one side, and then threw their bodies in the river. The pile of heads became so large that the place became known as 'Yanghwajin.' Later, one of the popes came to visit the site, and made each of the martyrs a saint.
Eventually, the place became a burial ground for foreign missionaries. The seeds that these missionaries have planted are very apparent in Korea. Korea was definitely ripe, fertile soil for the gospel, and as you've seen over the course of this blog, they take church really seriously. Definitely a praying people, and they know how to love with God's love... I am definitely indirectly blessed by the work of the hands of those missionaries... And as seen from the earlier museums, Korea's development is also in part due to the work of all the missionaries that spent their lives here.
Unfortunately, all the buildings were closed by the time we got there... But, we could still walk around the park and the cemetery.
There were lots and lots of historical markers next to the graves stating what each missionary did for Korea... There were definitely too many to take pictures of, so I just picked a few here and there.
These graves were all of infants that were lost.
"Judy Lee Holt"... That's the child of the Holts who we know for starting Holt Children's Services, Harry and Bertha Holt.
So much history and so much sacrifice here... But, these are the graves of those who truly lived. All of us on this trip owe thanks to all of them...
Mugunghwa... Korea's national flower. Pretty isn't? Kind of like... (Hehe...)
Really would've liked to see what was in there... Oh well.
Mural... This picture is significant because right after it, the reflector mirror that reflects light from the lens up into the viewfinder on my camera fell off. :( Lovely, right? I took the lens off and was looking at how the mirror was supposed to be attached. I really didn't know. Didn't look like anything was missing... Definitely wasn't held in with an adhesive.
I could set the mirror back on the sliding-thinger and take a picture, but then I'd have to take the lens off and re-seat the mirror right after a picture. Not good. This next section was a big walk-around with different, small memorials which symbolized/portrayed each day of The Passion. Kind of Catholic-y... I'll have to get the pictures from everyone else. But, this was it for pictures from me for the day... I stopped bringing my G7 with me a while ago, after I realized I was shooting everything with my 5D, so I didn't have a backup. :P Fail.
Anyways... We went to eat after, and while waiting for the food, I ran across the street to a GS25 Mart-thing and bought some super-glue. No, I couldn't read it. Yes, I'm sure it was super-glue. :P I have to admit, I like walking into a place, buying something and just pretending I'm completely Korean w/out tipping off the cashier that I'm an American. :P Haha...
Back at the restaurant, we had kimchi jigae... It was tasty, tasty. They tossed in ramen noodles when we ate all the tofu. I couldn't get my mind off my camera, though. :P
I don't really remember what happened the rest of the night, b/c I don't have pictures, but I remember I was really exhausted when I got back home. I fixed my camera by gluing the mirror back on with a couple drops of precision placed Korean super glue... Worked quite well after, though there were some new specks of dust on the mirror. :\ Still... At least the dust wasn't on the sensor, and I didn't spill any glue on the inside of the camera. I do remember spending some time chatting with a certain someone, though. :)
We had a big, long day the next day, so I made sure I went to bed at a reasonable time...
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