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Published: March 22nd 2006
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Norae-bang
Why am I always wearing the same shirt? Week 1 of Christine's Visit:
We were pretty damn happy to have someone from home. It was so fun to show someone around our new home...with all its craziness. We packed a lot of sight seeing and touring into those two weeks. Here is a quick low down on week 1.
- Dmz tour. This was a pretty interesting day. The whole day had this certain uneasiness to it. To think that we tourists were having a good'ol time, metres from North Korea...where the only things we hear about are atrocities of some sort.
We were told when to take photos, and when not to. We would look over to N. Korea, but were not allowed to point or make any gestures as we were certainly under surveillance. Walking around the compound (shown in the photos), we were told to walk in two single file lines, and to NOT fall behind for any reason. Quite funny hearing these strict orders from the U.S. army boy with the California accent (he made sure to tell about being from Cali a few times...as he trashed other parts of the U.S).
The blue buildings in the photo sit half on the North side,
Over the thin red line at the DMZ
If you look closely, you can see the communist soldier at attention at the building in the distance and half on the South. If you look between the buildings you can see the concrete divider that runs lengthwise, signifying the border. We were allowed to go into the buildings to take photos of the tables where official negotiations between North and South take place....though there haven’t been any in a long time.
On the outside are the Rok soldiers (Republic of Korea Soldiers) of the South who stand guard for our sake. We could look past the buildings at the North side, where a North Korean soldier stands guard watching our side (plenty of cameras pointed at us from that side too). Their 'Rok Ready' pose is apparently a Taekwondo ready position, but I think it just looks damn cool.
At one point in the tour (it was most of the day) we looked through telescopes at North Korean towns (including the propaganda village which has no inhabitants…set up simply to look thriving……apparently all the lights of the town will turn off by timer at the same time) where you could actually see people walking around. Kinda strange.
Later in the tour we went into one of the many underground tunnels that have been discovered. North Koreans
Rok ready
I loved these dudes. Not unlike Parliamentary Guards, but with cool sunglasses. had been trying to dig their way into the South, setting up massive tunnels in which they could transport huge amounts of soldiers and equipment.
The whole day just gave us a better understanding of the strangely tense relationship between the two Koreas, especially at their border. The threat of war is real, and ever present.
Ok, sorry. Back to stories of stupidness.
The next group of photos are from our adventures while touring around Seoul. We visited palaces, shopping markets, teahouses, an aquarium, a basketball game, a tower, and many hofs (beer pubs) and noraebangs (karaoke rooms). One of the highlights for us was our first homemade pancakes since being home (she made them on March 3….her birthday).
In week two, we headed to the South of Korea to visit a historic city for two days. It wasn’t quite what we were hoping for, mainly because it was really cold and all the sights were outdoors. As well, brown, barren parks and forests don’t make for very good photos. However, day 2 led us to some really cool Budhist temples and shrines in the mountains which received a big dump of snow the night before. Awesome.
Idiot tourist
The girls were scared to stand near these dudes, but I was Rok ready. The best part of our trip to Gyeong-ju was our cute little guesthouse with a really helpful host. We had a traditional room, not unlike a teahouse room, with the paper thin sliding door to the outside. It was awesome as we all slept on mattresses which were on the heated floor. It also had a little t.v. with vhs movies. We had a potato chip/chocolate/red wine party while watching Hulk. It was Shrove Tuesday. We indulged.
I’ll wrap this novel up. By the end, we were heading back to regular work hours with a new batch of Kindies…and Christine was heading to Thailand. Damn.
Now we are looking very forward to the visit from Mrs. Pearn and Daryl. Oh my god Daryl….I can’t wait to have another male here.
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Agnes
non-member comment
Hey guys, I finally got caught up on your blog. Looks like you're keeping pretty busy. It's such a different world there!