Peering across the border

My second day in South Korea started early. I had to be at Camp Kim, the headquarters of the USO (United Services Organisations) by 7am to head off on a tour of the De-Militarised Zone between North and South Korea. I picked the same tour Julie and Andrew did back in 2014 as they'd recommended it - visiting the Joint Security Area (JSA) where the Republic of Korea and the UN keep tabs on North Korea from a few blue huts and a series of observation posts.

The Korean War isn't something we know much about in the UK, which considering over 1,000 British troops died in it is shocking. The split between North and South Korea is obviously better-known, especially given recent tensions, and I felt I ought to visit to learn more about the divisions between the two countries. 

The DMZ was established in 1953 after the armistice agreement signed, ending three years of bitter and bloody war that killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. It extends 2km north and south of the Military Demarcation Line, essentially a border running along the 38th Parallel. At the JSA the UN, neutral observers from Switzerland and Sweden, and the two Koreas have an uneasy truce broken at intervals when a defector from the north crosses the line.

Tours are supervised by a US military policeman - ours was a young private called Zimmerman - who gives a short Powerpoint presentation about the history of the area  at the entry point in Camp Bonifas and then escorts groups up to the JSA itself. There, you're taken through the South Korean 'Freedom House' and into the conference building straddling the border where talks sometimes take place. For a moment, you can stand in what is technically North Korean territory and look at the locked door leading to the north. On our trip the room was guarded by two Republic of Korea soldiers and we saw no North Korean soldiers at all; Zimmerman said they hadn't seen any for a week. It was a very tense, odd sort of place. The Korean soldiers were intently watching the building on the north side through which visitors come when there are any, even though there was no sign of anyone there.

ROK soldier guarding the door to the north

The second stop was Dorasan Station, which has on occasions functioned for a while as a station to the north. It was the link up to Kaesong (or Gaesong) Industrial Complex, a joint venture between south and north until 2016. Then tensions grew, the complex was closed down and the station is now the last station in the south - or, as the Republic of Korea would prefer it, the "first station to the north". They have grand dreams of there one day being trains running through the whole Korean peninsula and on to join the Trans-Siberian and Trans-Mongolian Railways taking people all the way to Europe.

For the moment, tourists can catch the train from Seoul to Dorasan to tour the DMZ, or use it as a stop on a DMZ tour like us. You wander into a vast empty hall in a modern railway station. For 1,000 won (about 67p) you can go onto the empty platform. At one end there's a US railway truck and a chunk of the Berlin Wall which was a gift from Germany; at the other end, some railway sleepers associated with a visit by George W. Bush. If you stand at the northern end you can hear the sound of northern propaganda being blasted out through speakers. It was cold, and quiet, apart from the propaganda.

Tracks to nowhere

Near to the station is Dora Observatory, a site on a hill where they've helpfully put a lot of binoculars. The observatory is right at the southern limit of the DMZ so it's very close to the border and the binoculars are good enough to allow you to peer at the industrial complex and at the North Korean 'propaganda village', Kijong-dong. Kijong-dong is apparently mostly fake - facades of buildings with nothing inside, windows and doors painted on - but we did spot a tractor in the fields in front of it and quite a lot of people in those fields. On the horizon, hazy on the day we visited, is North Korea's third-largest city. We gazed for as long as a couple of 500 won coins would let us, and felt like we were voyeurs, or visitors to some sort of very peculiar zoo. It's not right to have to watch people in this way just because they're one side of a border.

The North's 'Propaganda' or 'Peace' Village (left) facing the South's 'Freedom' village (right)

The last stop of the day was the Third Tunnel - named as it is the third of four infiltration tunnels discovered by the Republic of Korea extending into their territory. A North Korean defector claimed that there are hundreds of these tunnels, but so far most remain undiscovered. The Third Tunnel was found in the late 1970s and North Korea claimed it was a coal mining venture - they painted the granite walls with coal dust - but the water run-off is to the north and why would they need to coal mine into enemy territory? As a tour I confess it wasn't the most exciting part of the day. We walked down an incredibly steep ramp into the tunnel and then along 250m or so to one of the three barricades put in when they found it.

The Third Tunnel site also has a small museum and a short video they show you which frankly was South Korean propaganda, claiming the DMZ is a "place of peace" where wild animals live in harmony. They literally showed us images of deer frolicking in sunlit meadows. The South Korean message is very much one of "one day we'll be unified again" and I'd like to think they'll get there, but despite the unified women's ice hockey team and joint marching at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, I'm doubtful.

We left the Third Tunnel as South Korea played Gangnam Style very loudly into their neighbour's territory. That's the propaganda they give the north - lots of cheesy K-pop.

Back in Seoul I decided to continue the war-themed day by a trip to the Korean War Memorial Museum, which is surrounded by several memorials to the war, a huge collection of warplanes, tanks and heavy artillery, and inside has a large exhibition on the war. This was interesting but very one-sided. I got very little sense of why North Korea invaded in 1950 and what the war cost them. The section on the United Nations involvement was particularly well-done though, and I liked an artwork at the end called 'the Drop' using dog-tags to create a teardrop shape.

I left the museum feeling a little depressed about the state of the world. The South Koreans have a memorial in the park around it which includes two clocks - one with the current time, the other 'frozen' on the day the war began in 1950. By the side is another clock, waiting to be started when unification happens. It would be good if sooner rather than later they're able to lift it into place, but for the moment, I'm not that hopeful.

Three days in Seoul

I wasn't really sure what to expect from Seoul. Friends who have visited have generally liked it, but having not travelled much in Asia and never in winter it was an unknown quantity.

First impressions were good as I sailed through immigration, using the special Olympic lane but not really needing it. Then it was a wait for my bag and a fight with the cash machine - totally different from UK ATMs and initially not giving me money. But obtaining a bus ticket and finding the airport bus was easy and my guesthouse had given me clear instructions for finding them. In fact the manager Jenny came to find me as she was worried I'd got lost!

I stayed just a stone's throw from the Changdeokgung Palace, one of several palaces of the Jeosun Dynasty (approximately 1400-1900) so that was my first stop on a brilliantly clear, frozen morning. Recent snow still lies on the ground in Seoul but they do an excellent job of clearing it up so it's not in anyone's way. The palace, a huge complex of buildings begun in about 1400, looked very pretty with snow on the roofs and icicles on shaded eaves.

Changdeokgung main gate

The ticket included a tour of the so-called Secret Garden, a vast landscaped area behind the main palace of trees and (frozen) ponds and lots of pagodas and pavilions. Our very earnest guide was informative as she led us through the garden, which was very peaceful despite being in the middle of a large city. Afterwards I explored more of the palace, coming across a raccoon which appeared to be living in one of the old underfloor heating systems. That was a surprising extra!

From Changdeokgung I wandered through the old district of Bukchon, where lots of old houses are preserved. Lunch was the Korean staple of bibimbap, basically a bowl of vegetables and rice with a fried egg on top. It comes with lots of little dishes of kimchi (pickled veg) and I also got a small bowl of miso soup. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to pour the soup over the rice so didn't. After a fortnight of NZ food prices it was great to have such a substantial meal for a little more than £5.

The second palace of the day was Gyeongbokgung, previously the main palace of the dynasty. In style it's much like Changdeokgung but is bigger and sprawlier and worth the visit if only for the extraordinary main throne room and the large pavilion behind. There were lots of groups of young Koreans - mostly girls - dressed up in the colourful silk traditional hanbok dresses taking pictures of each other.

I saw more palaces and the royal shrine on the third day (a tour of the De-Militarised Zone taking up day two) although by the end of a wander around Deoksugung Palace I was a bit palaced-out. They're all fairly similar, although I found something in each one which made it worth the trip - a spectacular throne room, or particularly nice decorations. As I'd bought the combination Royal Palaces ticket it didn't cost me much extra; in fact I thought the combination ticket at a total cost of 10,000 won (about £6.50) was a bargain.

Old and new

 Day three's rough aim was to have lunch at Korea's largest market, but it was so very bitterly cold I ended up in a dumpling restaurant at the edge of the market instead and stuffed my face with a mixed dumpling selection, just the thing to line the stomach when it's sub-zero outside. In the evening I went to Gwangjang Market which was within walking distance of my guesthouse - and covered - for a look at their eatery rows. The choices were primarily dumplings (darn ...), variations on things done with offal (not my favourite) and mung bean pancakes.

I opted for the pancakes, but managed to find a stall where you could only get takeaway. Or maybe I needed to sit and then order to eat 'in' at one of the benches next to the stall. In any case the lady was most miffed after wrapping a pancake up in foil to have to unwrap it, stick a quarter of it in a paper cup, and hand me the cup along with the rest of the pancake in a plastic bag. I ate it standing up and it was good but not quite the relaxing meal I'd planned!

Overall I liked Seoul. It's a peculiar mix of the ancient and traditional and the modern. The former is represented in the palaces and old hanok buildings dotted around, and in the many street food stalls which can be found on even the poshest shopping streets. The latter is represented by free wifi everywhere, a clean and efficient metro system, and a craft beer and coffee culture embraced wholeheartedly by the young. It's a big city and I only really scratched the surface, but I feel it might be better explored in spring on foot than in the depths of winter.