A Trippy Trip to the DMZ

The Demilitarized Zone (known as the DMZ) between North and South Korea is one of the strangest places either of us have ever visited. The boarder between South and North Korea is one of the most heavily fortified and militarized borders in the world, yet various tour companies (including the USO, who we went with) shuttle hoards of tourists there every day.  The tension is thick, with violent incidents and fairly frequent acts of aggression and terrorism still lingering in the air, just a few years past.  Republic of Korea (R.O.K.) and U.S. soldiers stand ready on the South Korean side of the boarder, making fun of the Korean People's Army soldiers (K.P.N.) yards away in North Korea as nervous tourists laugh and snap photos.  Both sides record each other with cameras mounted everywhere, remodel buildings in attempts to out-do one another, and maintain strict rules (like no pointing - one guy on our tour got yelled at for pointing at the North Korean side) regarding behavior around the border.

Not far from the Joint Security Area (the J.S.A), where tour groups flock and delegates from the U.N. try to keep things peaceful, there is a train station connecting the North and South.  It seems to have been built mainly for publicity.  George W. Bush went there to commemorate its opening, but no train has passed from one side to the other.  The train station stands new and shiny, a propaganda ghost boasting of a brighter future, where the two sides are re-united by this glorious transport hub.  For now, it just stands mainly empty - a creepy and eerie shell, waiting for passengers that will likely never come.  The station even has security stalls with conveyor belts and metal detectors set up for the day when trains can once again cross the border.  The station looks brand new, but oddly feels like a ghost town.  You can even pay to go down to the platform and look at the unused tracks.

in North Korea w/ROK soldier

There are also small border towns on each side near the JSA.  The South's town is populated by relatives of villagers displaced during the Korean war over 50 years ago.  The North's town is, according to the South, populated by no one and made to look really great, though it is entirely empty.  At one point, South Korea's town put up a flag pole and the North quickly put up a taller pole with a larger flag to show them who is boss.  North Korea's town is called "Propaganda Village" because they used to blare anti-South and pro-North propaganda over loud speakers up to 18 hours a day.

A real, live North Korean!

Our tour visited a tunnel dug by North Korea as well.  The tunnel is one of four that have been discovered so far.  Every time one of these tunnels is discovered, North Korea has a new excuse.  The one we visited had black rocks, which were painted so the North could claim that it had been mining for coal.  Upon being confronted about one of the other tunnels, the North simply blamed the South, claiming that they had built it.  This seemed to us a little like passing gas in an elevator with one other guy, turning to him and saying, "You did it." Classic.

The bus loads of tourists visiting the JSA, the empty train station and the tunnels combined with the seemingly childish antics of both sides (the flag pole war, and drawn out arguments involving the tallest building in the JSA, and more) make a very dangerous situation feel very bizarre.  Three American and R.O.K soldiers were killed in the late 1970's when they were attacked by North Korean soldiers after attempting to chop down a tree obstruction their view of other observation points. A few days later the tree was cut down while air support and an aircraft carrier of the coast of South Korea provided cover.  We also learned about several fairly recent acts of terrorism, the plight of North Korean refugees, and broken families.  There is a grave and heartbreaking rift between North and South Korea.  The fear and anger and hatred is very strong, but the DMZ does feel a little like Disneyland with machine guns. The souvenir shops were the weirdest part, as they peppered every stop on our tour and carried everything from North Korea beer (what, no embargo?) to little US army fatigues for infants.

We had been told that you have to go to the DMZ to believe it.  And we didn't plan to go at first.  We thought it would be too dangerous, since all either of us have ever heard about it were the acts of violence and the extreme tension on both sides. But it was really powerful, disturbing, somewhat comical, emotional, and frightening all at once.  It was truly unlike anywhere we have ever been.

Seoul: Good For the Soul

It is true, we get by with a little help from our friends.  In this case, our five days in Seoul were greatly improved, and many difficulties eased, because of our friend LC.

Jeff and LC had a class together in college, and she was kind enough to reach out when she found out we were coming to Korea.  Months before we came to Seoul she offered to show us around, and she did not disappoint when we finally did come to town.  Her kindness took the form of a night out to sample the Seoul nightlife and a full-day tour of the city the following day.

LC has lived in Korea for the past four years teaching English and had a lot of observations, experiences, and perspective to share. Our first night in Seoul we met up with LC and some of her friends for dinner, drinks, and dancing. We learned a lot about Korean culture, through the eyes of Westerners.  We talked at length about their views on education, plastic surgery, social pressures, and dating a Korean as a Westerner. Dating sounds fraught with issues and almost too complicated to enjoy - as parental pressure to wed before age 30 is extremely high.  We had noticed plastic surgery ads and offices all over the place in Korea, especially in the big cities.  LC and her friends confirmed that plastic surgery was routine in Korea, noting that Korean women they had worked with had mentioned that they were going to have bone shaving to make their face thinner, or an eye-lid procedure to create a more "Western" look in a few days as nonchalantly as we might mention a trip to the beach or the purchase of a new shirt. The societal pressure to fit a certain standard of beauty, whiter skin, thin face, wide eyes, etc., is HUGE in Korea, according to the LC and her friends.  Two of her friends are Korean Canadians and they had a unique perspective on Korea.  We really enjoyed the whole evening - as dancing and late night drinking binges are not usual for us at home or abroad - and felt the short time with LC's friends helped us discover (second-hand) aspects of Korean culture we never would have seen.

The following day LC took us around Seoul for no less than 9 hours.  We met up with her just after lunch and left her long after the sun set and we had enjoyed some coffee and pastries.  She took us to Gyeongbok-gung [경복궁,景福宮] (the most famous palace in Seoul), a wonderfully artsy and alternative neighborhood called Insadong, to a traditional Korean tea house,  the magnificently romantic and charmingly refurbished Cheonggye Stream park, and to a great dinner.  We had more enlightening and interesting conversations with LC throughout the day, and left her that evening happy, well-fed, and better cultured.  We would not have been able to truly experience Seoul without LC!  We walked and took the subway so we also saw a lot of downtown Seoul on the LC tour.  We suggest you take it if you are ever in town!

The next day we continued to get over tummy troubles, saw the second most famous palace in Seoul, ate a comforting BK lunch, and found ourselves drawn back to Insadong.  There is a three-story building in Insadong where almost all the shops sell super awesome handmade items.  We nearly bought these cool and unique (and very heavy) clay tigers.  We may buy them if they are still there when we go back to Seoul during our 12 hour layover between Bangkok and Seattle in December!

Our five days in Seoul presented us with the big-city version of Korea.  We saw a young man too drunk to walk or do anything outside of a club when we went out our first night.  We attended a Catholic mass (in Korean) in a very gothic and out-of-place looking brick church.  We ate an over-priced waffle and ice cream with kanoodling young Koreans in Insadong (apparently, Koreans love to go out for coffee and sweets - one need only walk down a major street in any city and note the Seattle-like proportions of coffee shops for proof). We danced and drank with Westeners and Korean-Canadians in the most happening neighborhood in Seoul (this included drinking at a very Capitol Hill-like bar called Vinyl, where all drinks are served in plastic bags with straws--think adult Capri Suns). We saw Korea's two most revered palaces, and held hands along its favorite new/old park.  We watched a very touristy, and very entertaining, changing of the guard at the Palace we went to with LC.  We left Seoul feeling like we had just visited one of the world's best cities.  We left Korea feeling like we had discovered a less-traveled jewel in a modern world where most amazing countries are totally pillaged and overrun with tourism and tourists.  If it wouldn't ruin the gem that is Korea, we'd tell you to go there.  So, shhhhh.





Notes

We stayed at a unique and slightly bizarre guesthouse in Seoul.  The location was fabulous!  The concept perfect.  The guesthouse was, in reality, kind of a bummer.  It was called Mr. Kim's Friends Guesthouse. Mr. Kim is a younger man with a dream:  He wants all of his guest to feel like they are at home.  He even has a bed in the front room and routinely fell asleep in the common areas out of apparent exhaustion. The common areas at Mr. Kim's felt awkward because they were so cramped and cluttered.  Our room was fine, but the noisy. Coming down the stairs around noon to a sleeping person in the bed in the front room was a bit uncomfortable.  And, although we applaud Mr. Kim's dream, we never felt liking hanging out in the common areas because doing so made us feel as though we were invading his (and possibly his family's) privacy.  We noticed a small, typed sign on the front door practically pleading for a new staff member to help out, and all we had to do was take one look at the totally tuckered Mr. Kim to tell that his dream was waring him out.  We wish Mr. Kim the best of luck, but can't recommend his place to any light sleepers or those with more sensitive sensibilities.

Our day-trip to the DMZ turned out to be a strange and fascinating thing.  The next post on our blog will be a quick re-cap of our visit to the DMZ.

Seoraksan National Park

Our two week South Korean stint was designed to start in Busan (on the Southwest tip of the peninsula) and swing us north, up the east coast hitting stops along the way before cutting west across the country to Seoul. Our destinations between Busan and Seoul were mostly small cities and towns with points of interest - the largest cave in South Korea, the penis park, temples, burial mounds, palaces, and the like. Our last stop before Seoul was the one we were most looking forward to:  We planned to stay three nights in a small town, Seorok-dong, just outside of one of Korea's favorite national parks, Seorksan (pronounced so-rock-san). Hiking is Korea's unofficial national passtime and after seeing photos from Seoroksan, we knew we had to go.  South Korea is still off the beaten path for most Western travelers, but the ones that do come to Korea come for the hiking.

We knew Seoraksan would be a little more difficult to get to than other destinations we had visited.  And our journey did turn into a mini-adventure.  We took a bus to a larger city outside of the park, planning to catch a smaller local bus to Seoraksan and our guest house there, the Seoraksan Morning Inn.  We ran around in the rain for a while trying to determine which bus to take to Seorak-dong and from where.  Luckily, we spotted some other white-folk with backpacks and instinctively gravitated toward them.  The hope in this move is always that the Westerners in question will be going to the same place and might know better what they are doing.  These particular backpackers had the good fourtine of running into an English-speaking local, eager to help them.  Their guide was able to help them, then us, to the correct bus stop and onto the right bus.  We chatted with our fellow travelers (actually, kind of a rare sight in Korea where most Westerners we had seen had been English teachers, ex-pats, and military personnel) during the bus ride.  They were two younger German guys who had just graduated high school.  Their trip sounded like a lot of fun - from Dubai to South Korea - and they had much to say in favor of couch surfing.  Easily the best quote from them was when one said, "We love to paw-tay!" This phrase, spoken with a German accent, made Jeff's day.  Deliiight-fuuulll!

We rolled off the bus after about an hour and parted ways with the Germans.  They went to their clearly marked Garden Inn, while we stumbled around for 5 or 10 minutes in search of the much harder to find Morning Inn.  We finally found it and it was far creepier than the photos on their website.  Massive and about 20 years past its prime, it looked like something our of The Shining.  Our room was one of the crustiest we had stayed in up to that point.  Howie Mandel could not have spent five minutes in it.  It was dark and we were tired.  The inn didn't appear to have any other guests at first, though we later heard some people yelling in the parking lot and could make out one girl shouting repetadly, "Fuck America! I fucking hate America!"  She sounded to us to be American herself, but clearly she loved to party.  The combination of the awkward owners, the apparence of the inn, the seemingly empty town populated only by mist and dim street lights, and the grungy room left us felling a little uncertain about our surroundings.

The next morning we woke up to blue skies and the bright, shining sun.  There was a marvelous peak visible from our room and that along with the clear weather and singing birds lifted our spirits considerably.  We went to the tourist office and found that we were about a week from the full opening of the park.  There were only a handful of hikes available from the Seorak-dong side of the park.  The first thing we noticed was that although Seoraksan had the most white people we had seen in South Korea, Korean's seemed most in awe of our whiteness.  We were approached the most for introductions and conversations in Seoraksan.  We even caused a small backup on the main road to the park when we stopped for breakfast on the second day.  Several cars in a row slowed as the drivers and all passengers ogled us.  We're talking serious rubber-necking here.  Heads turning as the vehicles rolled past us. Just inside the park on the first day we joined Korean tourists in taking photos of a  bear-and-cub statue when Annette was mobbed by a gaggle of little girls.  One came right up to her and handed her a flower. The girl was beaming.  "Hello! Hello!" they all shouted in a cute chorus.  Annette felt like Lady Gaga surrounded by her fans!  One of the little girls called out, "How are you?"  "I'm fine," Annette replied. "How are you?"  One little girl said "Good." Another said, "Fine." And another chirped our favorite response, "I'm unbelievable!"  This was the "We love to party" moment of the day!

Jeff had declared less than two weeks before Seoraksan that our hike on Miyajima was one of the most memorable of his life.  Two of the three hikes in Seoraksan easily blew Miyajima away.  One of the best parts of hiking in Korea was noticing all of the little differences between how Koreans hike and how Americans hike.  First, the outfit is of great importance.  Korean cities are crammed with hiking shops filled with neon coats and black pants.  This seems to be the national hiking outfit of choice.  Many people we encountered had this outfit, along with fancy backpacks, hats, hiking poles, and cool sunglasses.  Curiously, other people, mostly younger, but not always, chose high-heels and mini-skirts or jeans and tennis shoes. Some hiking trails demand little more than this sort of clothing, but the first two hikes we took in Seoraksan certainly demanded more.  The trails were mostly paved lain with stone, but when it came to gaining altitude wooden and metal staircases are built straight up hills and mountains.  These were the second and third major differences between hiking in America and Korea. At home, trails are mostly maintained dirt with bridges or wood used only when necessary.  In Korea cement is utilized liberally, and switchbacks are scrapped for steep staircases.  The first hike we took ended in almost two kilometers of metal staircases ascending straight up a sheer rock face.  The hike was difficult, the stairs bizarre, and the pay-off, to quote our little friend from earlier in the day, was "unbelievable!"  Getting to the top of the rock we climbed would have been impossible without advanced climbing gear and experience.  Once at the top, some dudes had set up a generator and were snapping photos for quick printing and selling.  Cold drinks were also for sale.  You see, the metal work didn't stop with the stairs.  The top of the hike culminated in two levels of metal platforms for celebrating and photo ops.

The big hike of the day left us just enough energy for a swinging cable-car ride up an opposite peak in gusting wind.  We hoped to watch the sunset from the top, but the harsh wind sent us back before the act was completed.  We did get to see more than a few folks in inappropriate attire scramble around the rocks.  You haven't seen comedy until you've seen a gal in high-heels and short skirt try to walk up a 60-degree hill in the wind.  We planned to tackle the two remaining hikes, a climb up a rock face to a cave and another to a waterfall our second day. We went for the cave first, since it promised to be more difficult.  It had portions as steep as our hike the day before, but was (thankfully) much shorter.  The cave turned out to be a temple with amazing views.  Peering out of the hole at the surreal mountain scenery outside was a spiritual experience for Jeff.  Annette's spiritual experience was catching her breath and drinking some water.

Luckily, the hike to the waterfall was pretty tame.  The waterfall itself wasn't breathtaking, but the hike and the fall were both pretty.  The flat and laid-back nature of the trail were heavenly! We slept well that night, as we had the night before, after showers in the a shower so unclean that you literally have to have just finished a hot, sweaty day of difficult hiking to use it. The next day we got up early and caught a bus to another bus to Seoul.  We left sore and happy.  Korea, we salute your strange and incredible hiking traditions!

Click HERE for more photos of Seorksan National Park!

Penis Park

Nearby the South Korean town of Samcheok is a small fishing village with a funny superstition.

The lighthouse is a ding!

Folk-lore in this village has it that a young virgin drowned on a small island off the coast. Her ghost haunted the village, causing bad fishing hauls.  A fishermen concluded that exposing himself to the sea while fishing would appease the dead virgin's ghost. Naturally, this plan worked and good fishing hauls returned to the village.  The fishermen of this village began exposing themselves every time they sailed and good hauls continued. At some point the fishermen tired of constantly exposing themselves to this virgin ghost and they started carving penises to decorate the cliffs overlooking the ocean instead.  Over time this turned into an annual penis-carving competition, and now there is a whole park, called Haesindang Park, filled with penises above this small town.

This place has every type of penis you could imagine. Small. Large. Fat. Skinny. There are Penis animals, penis water cannons, penis benches, and, of course, dozens of wooden carved penises left over from past contests.

The benches are dings!

We enjoyed this park because there were locals and tourists, young and old folks, all enjoying this utterly amusing forest of phallus. Delightful!

And actually, this park is just a symptom of what seems to be a national obsession.  Korea is a men-first sort of society, and many believe stamina (in bed, of course) to be very important.  There was a global Ginsing expo in Seoul when we were there and other foods, such as live octopus, are consumed under the belief that they are good for stamina.  Our friends in Seoul confirmed Korea's fascination with penis, though the penis park is all we needed.  Gaggles of giggling middle-aged men and women snapping photos posing with the many members and small children running around below the towering wangs provided priceless moments!

Check out our Samcheok Picasa album for more penis priceless-ness!

Everybody say, "Ding!"

Don't look up little fella!!