South Korea: Reunification With North Korea Is Imminent!

For Thursday, October 13, 2011

Seoul

They told me so on the DMZ tour. I had asked Mia (the hostel owner) to book me a Korean DMZ tour. Keren (from Australia) was going as well, so we both left at about 8 AM and were picked up by the tour company. We met another couple along the way, Lexi (from New York) and Graeme (from England), whom we chatted with along the way. During the hour or so drive from Seoul to the DMZ, our tour guide explained how things would work, the places we would visit, the things we would see, and rattled off various factoids and information as well. At one point, she spoke about reunification with North Korea, that it would be happening soon, and that they were preparing for it. This took me by surprise, and I wondered if something had happened that I hadn’t heard about. Common sense kicked in a few minutes later, and I laughed. We got a glimpse of North Korea along the highway, across barbed wire and a body of water, in the hazy distance. First we saw Freedom Bridge, used by South Korean prisoners of war to return from North Korea as part of a prisoner exchange some time ago. Then we went to a building with some South Korean soldiers that we all took pictures with. Then we went to an observation point from which one can usually see the two South and North Korean villages in the DMZ used for political contact. However, it was foggy that day, and the North side was obscured. There is a very tall flag pole in each DMZ village. The North and South Koreans tried to outdo each other by having the taller flag pole, and eventually the South gave up and let the North have it. Then they took us to the entrance to a North Korean tunnel that was discovered some time ago. The North dug several tunnels across the DMZ to invade the South. Those sneaky northerners! In case you were wondering (Mom and Dad), the DMZ is quite safe. About five million people visited the DMZ in the past year. There were young schoolchildren there. After the DMZ tour, I had a late lunch with Lexi and Graeme in the Hongdae area near my hostel. They had been teaching English in Daejeon, South Korea, for the past eight months, and were in Seoul to do a little sightseeing before flying to Malaysia for a month, and then New Zealand for a year. I really enjoyed their company, and we agreed to meet for dinner that night. In the meantime, I decided to get some more sightseeing of my own done. I went to Gwangjang market, which is a busy, colorful place, full of fresh seafood and vegetables, street food vendors, and shops for clothes and knickknacks. Some of the food there for sale was fascinating. What sticks in my mind even now were the pig heads and hooves (I guessed they were pig hooves, it was hard to tell). Striking, to say the least. Then I went to a Hanok village replica, which I think showed the kinds of buildings that were in villages a long time ago (possibly ancient, not sure). I found this only marginally interesting, so I took off after a little bit, but did stick around for a few minutes to enjoy some kind of live musical performance happening in the same park. Then I went to Namdaemun market, similar to Gwangjang, except this was outdoors in an alley and sold many more non-food items. Everywhere I looked were throngs of people. Everywhere I looked there was something interesting to look at. That evening, Keren and I met Lexi and Graeme and we searched for a restaurant in the Hongdae area that served dalk galbi, a delicious chicken dish that I absolutely loved. I want to have it one more time before leaving South Korea. Afterward, we ran into Federico, someone from Lexi and Graeme’s hostel, and we all went to norebang (karaoke) and sang popular songs and drank beers for a couple hours. The manager kept giving us more singing time because we were ordering beers. Afterward, Keren went home, and I went with Lexi and Graeme back to their hostel to drink a little more and chat. I talked more with Lexi and Graeme, and also chatted with their hostel’s temporary manager about traveling. Lexi was a philosophy major, so we talked a little philosophy, which I always enjoy, and of course I brought up The Matrix, which I love to discuss. It was something like 2 or 3 AM when I walked home alone.