The Two Koreas

28^th May – 1^st June 2016

Which screen do I use?

Flush button?

I arrived in the Republic of Korea mid-afternoon. I was expecting Seoul to be a bit futuristic and I wasn’t wrong. The ATM was complex and I struggled to find the correct combination to withdraw cash. What was even more confusing were the toilets. I was trying to find the flush button amongst the many options on the arm rest when a little tube came out and started squirting water everywhere. I quickly left the cubicle.

View from the hostel

A church in this distance

I took a couple of trains on a very fast and efficient system to get to the hostel. The hostel was pretty chilled so after a busy couple of days I thought I would have a quite one that evening. The rooftop of the hostel had a good view so I sat and had a beer up there with a couple of people. I got told off by the hostel owner for not wearing flip flips. He said I would dirty his floor.

A park

The rest of the park

Seoul

The next day I went out to explore the city. Korea had been a bit of a last minute addition to the travel itinerary so I had not put much time into researching places to see whilst I was here. I grabbed a map from reception and set off in the vague direction of the city centre. This hill gave a brilliant view over the whole city, especially at Seoul Tower.

A cafe with a view

Bit hazy

Seoul Tower

The view was so good from the base of the tower that I saw little point in paying the extra to go to the top of it. There were a few places around the base that had thousands of padlocks. If you were into scrap metal then you could make a fortune here.

Lovelocks

Arty picture

Down the other side

Mr Kim Koo

On the way down the other side of the hill I walked past the statue of Kim Koo. I read the sign next to him which told me he was a pioneer in the movement to stop Japan’s occupation and also tried very hard to achieve reunification with the North before being assassinated.

The History Museum

A tower of some sort

An old throne

History seemed like it would be a good topic to explore so I went over the History Museum which is in a very large and imposing building. The museum taught me all about the tribal days and the kingdoms which were united and then split and then reunited again. Each kingdom had its own history and culture. It was interesting but I wanted to learn more about the recent history so the next stop was the War Memorial.

One of the memorial statues

A big bullet

The War Memorial

Heavenly

The actual memorial

I knew very little about the Korean War but this museum gave a good overview of everything. It came about in a similar way to the Vietnamese War with two different ways of moving the country forward after the end of Japanese occupation. The North got help from the Chinese and then invaded the country before they were pushed back with the help of the US and Allied forces. The two sides have signed a cease fire but they are still technically at war. The main thing I wanted to do in Korea was visit the Demilitarised Zone so I booked a tour to do that on my final day.

New friend

Night out

I had an (almost) completely lazy day the next day. It had been a while so I thought it was justified. I did, however, get very drunk and go out. I had spoken to two girls about karaoke and how I was up for going to one of Korea's many karaoke bars. They invited me to join them which I did but there was a catch. We would go to a club until 2/3am and then go to karaoke. Yeah, I wasn’t going to last that long so that kind of fell through but it was good to go out all the same.

LOUD!

It meant I was a little hungover for my DMZ tour that started at 8am the next day. There was a couple of hours drive to get there so I was able to get a bit of extra sleep on the bus but I still wasn’t feeling great. These ladies were very loud and I didn’t appreciate the noise at all. They had the speakers as loud as they would go.

Bridge to nowhere

They were playing on the edge of the DMZ, the last place a civilian was allowed to go (without being on a tour). There was a railway bridge to nowhere as the North won’t allow any trains through. It felt like being on the edge of unknown.

End of the line

Prayers on the fence

A wish for unity

I walked right up to the barbed wire fence to see all the prayers and good will messages attached to it. Our tour guide told us that the overall population (and especially the youth) would really like to be unified with the north. Something she pointed out which I hadn’t notices is that it’s not North Korea and South Korea. Its the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north and the Republic of Korea in the South.

Lookout

Model of the DMZ

Pushing the North and South together

The next point on the tour was inside the Demilitarised Zone. It was a bit scary when I saw signs on the fence warning about mines so you wouldn’t want to go wandering off. There was a small centre with a bit of information about the place. We were visiting the Third Tunnel which is one of the many tunnels they’ve found that go under the DMZ and into the South. I had thought the war had ended in  1953 but the North still fully intended to invade the South as late as the 70s.

The tunnel and the access tunnel (bottom right)

The window into the North

We descended 300 metres through a long and steep access tunnel to get into the infiltration tunnel. It was quite narrow and I had to walk bent over to get to the end of it. There isn’t actually all that much to see. They’ve built three concrete walls at the point that marks the border. You can see the North through a small square window from about 10 metres away. You weren’t allowed to take photos so I got a sneaky picture of the CCTV.

Actual North Korea

A northern town

Northern farmers

Perhaps the most exciting part of the day was going to the viewpoint where you can see North Korea. It wasn’t the clearest of days but it was still amazing to see into this forbidden world. I thought these border towns would be abandoned but then I saw actually North Korean people working on the farms. It would fascinating to know what they were thinking. About their lives, their future and why the hell there’s a viewpoint with hundreds of strange looking faces pointing cameras at them.

The flagpoles

There was a great story about these flagpoles. There was a bit of a height race with each side putting up bigger poles. The South thought they had won it when they put up the white 18 metre pole you can just see in the picture but then north bettered it with a ridiculous 160 metre mast.

The border train station ready to go

The capital of the North

There was an agreement by the two Koreas to connect the old railway line from the South through to China in 2000. Only, after they built the railway and the stations, the North increased the rental ten times the agreed amount. The station now sits here idle waiting for the day of reunification. I do wonder if I will see that within my lifetime. If there’ll be some war with the north, possible nuclear, or they would just simple decide to all get along. Not likely, I think.

That was the end of my brief foray into the Republic of Korea. Like China, it’s somewhere I would like to return and fully explore. There is so much more history here than just the Korean War. I would like to go down to the south coast where the culture is meant to be quite different. At least I would be able to fully explore the next country. I had a full month in Japan.