Visiting the North

Saturday we took Drew's parents (minus Kami...too dangerous) on a tour of the DMZ. That was one of the most amazing and frightening tours I think I've ever been on. You know how when you go to a place where you know good things happened? Or even when you visit say, Gettysburg, you know at least something good came from the fighting there? Yeah, there was absolutely none that that feeling here. After 50+ years of standing at a truce, the tension between the Korea's is so thick and so serious. There's nothing like the feeling of being watched by the bad guys.

This is the 'Bridge of No Return' that was used to exchange POW's. The Koreans were allowed to choose whether they wanted to live in the North or South, but whatever they chose, they would never be allowed to return to the other country.

This is the best picture we could take with our telephoto lens of one of the villages known as "Propaganda Village". The only people that actually live in these houses are a few of the North Korean military members and their families. And on a side note: for those that I've talked to on the phone that say it sounds like I have a cold and I keep saying it's "Yellow Dust" or polution coming over from China...this is what I mean . All that foggy-ness, that's polution! Yuck! These three pictures are of some pretty tough South Korean guards that you do not want to mess with! According to the US Military Police who was giving us the tour, they are all in a ready to kick your butt stance of taekwondo. The third guard by the blue door is actually guarding the door that leads into North Korea. Craziness.


And finally, this is a picture of a North Korean guard; if you also look closely in the window on the other side of the pillar, you can make out another guard who is watching us with binoculars.
An interesting side note...Drew just showed me an article on CNN that says that a North Korean officer defected to the South the day after we were there. Very interesting!