Seoul and the DMZ

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December 8th 2006

Published: December 7th 2006

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DGrant

Nandaemun Gate

In the middle of downtown!

Day 2

Waking up refreshed in our beautiful motel we planned our day around the many palaces that are dispersed throughout the city. With clear blue skies, we decided to forego the metro for now and just start walking. This is always the best way to navigate an unfamiliar city and we were soon exploring. Seoul is a large metropolis with seemingly many actual downtown's. We first walked past "beautiful" Seoul Tower, perhaps one of the ugliest landmarks I have seen. I do appreciate the CN Tower more, lol.

Seoul is quite a beautiful city with many trees (we were there at the perfect time, as all the trees were a marvellous yellow) as well as palaces. The city has essentially developed around these palaces, so a walk will lead you past several skyscrapers but also ancient gates and palaces from the 1400's, very interesting.

Also stopped in on a lively market selling interesting goods. My favourite being the Christmas stalls. South Korea is approximately 30%!C(MISSING)hristian so it was fascinating seeing these stalls selling over-the-top Christmas decorations. Basically, a Christmas shop asian style, which is as much stuff and as many lights as possible.

Another beautiful

Merry Christmas

a Christmas nightmare

aspect were the surrounding mountains in the north part of the city. The palaces were also a treat again with the leaves changing colour. The colours in the palaces were gorgeous, and much different than any I've seen in China or Japan. Very bright, but in a subdued way.

We also visited the DMZ which was the highlight of the trip. Due to the current state of world affairs, it was really interesting to see North Korea which to me seems very foreign. Going into the DMZ and to the border we were able to see a city from afar, as well as their mountains. Though difficult to see in my photos (the photo line cracked me up) all their mountains are bare with no trees. This is not due to nature though, as a patrolling officer in the DMZ explained that North Korea has had to chop down ALL the trees to use for firewood, buildings etc. It is unfortunate and North Korea hopefully can become peaceful as its citizens are the ones suffering right now. We could also barely make out a statue of Kim Jong II (apparently there are over 2000 scattered across the country).

Seoul Tower

Lovely, isn't it?!

The most interesting part was the trip down to the tunnels. There are several tunnels that have been found by South Korea that were apparently being dug for an invasion into Seoul. These tunnels were capable of moving 30,000 troops in an hour and were built under the DMZ. Simply fascinating! South Koreans were quick to point out the deceitfulness of the North Korean government as they denied the tunnels and in fact first stated that they were built by South Korea. The fact that the origins were in North Korea didn't seem to bother North Korea. Finally admitting they dug the tunnels they said they were mining for graphite which apparently has never been present in the area. As a final act of deceit the tunnels were painted black to make it appear as if graphite was present. Pretty hilarious if you ask me!!! Unfortunately cameras were not allowed, so no photos from the tunnels.

Overall, a great trip!!! May never go back to Korea, have many places to visit, but I would 100% recommend a visit. I enjoyed my time there and the 5 days were a blur (probably due to all the clubbing and no sleep).