Trans-Mongolian trip - South Korea Seoul

As I mentioned several times, China is a crowded country. You can experience it in many daily situations and it can extend to the airports where my outbound flight from Shenzhen to Seoul was delayed by 1 hour because there were too many planes which needed to take off!! Interestingly at Shenzhen airport, I came across the below panel where Taiwan did not seem to fit into the International departure category …

I landed in South Korea in the evening. At the border control, they took my fingerprints along with a picture of me. Facilities at the airport are even more modern than in China. I then took a train to Seoul downtown, looking forward to discover a country whose movies & pop star music are sweeping throughout Asia, especially China where it’s even more popular than Chinese movies. The first think I noticed in Seoul public transport is that Koreans are actually waiting for people inside to leave the bus/subway before actually getting in; an unexpected behaviour after just spending a month in China where people had less courtesy. Another amusing fact is the cheer amount of advertising for plastic surgery which is a widespread practise for Korean girls. Many Koreans are ready to spend a fortune to have a whiter skin and European face. The most Famous Korean actors/actress have all undergone plastic surgery and look so perfect that many girls feel pressured to spend a lot of money in cosmetics (whose stores are all over the place, especially French one) and physical surgery to find a husband & good job. From a westerner point of view, Koreans are quite tall; many are reaching my height (1m90) and they are wearing clothes as a westerner.

As soon as I arrived to my hostel, I enquiry about going onto a tour at the border with North Korea which was something I always dreamt of experiencing. Unfortunately, it takes 2 working days to do the background check so I spent the 2 first days in Seoul exploring this modern city.

I had a typical Korean dinner with a local I met and I was really surprised by the amount of food and side dishes they throw on the tables.

The third day I finally went onto my tour to the DMZ and JSA (Joint Security Area). We drove North of Seoul for just about 50 min as the border with North Korea is only about 45 km from South Korea capital (scary!). There is a main highway in parallel of the DMZ from where you can see barbed wires, fences and watchtowers manned by armed soldiers as far as you can see (over 250km). As part of the DMZ tour, we were taken to an observatory where with binocular you can check out across the border a North Korean village (main sightseeing: the third highest flagpole in the world) then to an underground tunnel discovered in the 70’s and built by North Koreans to move infantry behind South Korean lines and launch surprise attacks to Seoul. It’s worth noting that South Korean mean need to service 2 years in the army and are de facto reservists up until the age of 49.

Finally, was the visit to the joint security area (manned jointly by South & North Koreans). We arrived at the UN run Bonifas camp, manned by American & South Koreans soldiers. Had a briefing on the DMZ and JSA, were led into a shop selling imported North Koreans products and currency. Serving at the Joint Security Area is a great honour and pride for South Korean soldiers as only the elite soldiers can be assigned there. They need to be above 1m70, black belt in Judo or Taekwondo, excellent military credentials and family background. During their shifts, they must be wearing Sun glasses and clench their fists in a threatening posture to impress North Koreans soldiers.

We then took a military bus under escort to take us to the site all the way through the DMZ. At first, we could only see one North Korean soldier at the other side checking us out through binoculars so was rather disappointing although the sight of the South Koreans solders facing the military line was really impressive. Went to one of the meeting house, after a soldier went in first to guard the exit door to North Korea to ensure nobody would do something foolish.

When we were about to leave, we noticed North Korean tourists at the other side and suddenly North Korean soldiers started to run towards the demarcation line. There were 3 between each meeting home. What was really interesting to observe is that amongst their team, one soldier was facing the North Korean tourists rather than the South Korean side and the 2 other were behind facing each other parallel to the demarcation line. Once the tourists left, they left too. I then realize that they were not so much worried about South Korean soldiers crossing the line to North Korea but the prospects of their own soldiers defecting to the South!!