NORTH KOREA

I got the opportunity to take a tour to the DMZ (De-militarized Zone). This is a 2.5 mile wide space that divides the North (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) with the South (Republic of Korea). This space spans the entire 155 mile border from coast to coast and has since the armistice that stopped the Korean War in 1953. This no-man's land has fences and guard stations to make sure that that way. I heard talk that if ever the two countries reunify, then this could be turned into a large national park since its been preserved for the last 50 years. There is one place on the DMZ where the two countries touch. The JSA (Joint Security Area) is a heavily guarded area, where the border between the two countries is just a concrete line on the ground. This area is manned on the southern side by the United Nations, The U.S. Army, and the South Korean Military, and the North Koreans carefully guard there half of this area. There are buildings overlapping the border, designed for the two countries to have talks. But these never happen. At one time soliders from both sides could intermingle throughout the entire JSA, but there were a few incidents that changed this. One involed North Korean soliders attacking and killing an American with an axe. So now, they each stay on their respective sides and stare at each other. An eery
experience. Along the border on the southern side, there are various tourist areas that promote peace and hope for reunification. On the tour, we visited a few of these places as well as the JSA. These first photos are at a few of these tourist spots.









At the Joint Security Area:





If you look carefully, the North Korean soldier is looking at us with binoculars. Apparently, no North Korean citizens are allowed to come to their half of the JSA, but they have Chinese tourists sometimes that come. I can just imagine it. Them standing over there taking photos of us, standing right here taking photos of them, and the North and South still not talking. While I was in Korea, an American symphony played in Pyeongyang, the capital of North Korea, which was a pretty big deal. There is hope yet!


 
The North and the South are each allowed to have one village in the DMZ. This is a photo of the North's village. It is full of three and four story buildings, many of them never finished, which were built to give the illusion of a prosperous country. Occasionally farmers can be seen farming around the village but that is it. the flag pole is 160 meters tall, built shortly after the South Korean DMZ village built a 100 meter tall pole. There used to be speakers and signs located in Propaganda village blaring propaganda along the lines of "the North rules, the sough sucks." But they were made to remove these. There are quite a few tours visible from where I was standing that are designed to block radio or whatever other types of waves from transmitting into the North. Essentially to cut their people off from any source of information from the outside world.