Day 9

Today’s alarm was set for 05:45 - yes you read that correctly 

We planned to meet up at 06:30 as we had a Korean DMZ / war memorial tour pick up at 07:30

Unfortunately I was still feeling well below par so Joss, Kieren and Hattie went on their own to the hotel buffet

Kudos to them - from the long long list of things they ate - they kept the family name flying high

We were due to be picked up by Mr Sam and his van ( no joke)

He arrived on time and led us to what I thought was literally a van as the transit looked like it had no windows - was this a possible hostage situation??

Once in, I realised that there were windows, but of course, they were all tinted black - I don’t think I’ve seen a car without tinted windows, including the windscreen 

Once in we drove around to pick up a few then stopped to drop 2 guys off

We were then all ushered out of the van and onto a bus - and we were a little perturbed by the fact everyone was speaking in different languages

By far the most annoying of these were the Swedish family of four - well, just the mother

She decided that she didn’t want to sit with her family behind us, but in the empty seat in front of us

This didn’t stop her constantly talking to her family, over / through us

I hate coach travel - full of absolute cocks - and as this one had seemingly no suspension - I had no reason to change my mind

I felt sorry for the guys that had left though, as the tour operator kept asking if they were on the bus, despite him being the one to send them off.....

Our first stop was to Imjingak Park - which is where thousands of POWs were exchanged at the end of the Korean War - it was powerful stuff

This was the entrance to the bridge on which the  POW exchange happened 

And this was the remains of the last train that crossed the bridge - destroyed by the Russians

We liked the train

We enjoyed other stuff too

The only slightly niggly thing was that we didn’t have much time to look around before we were off to Dorasan train station - the only station in the Demilitarised Zone - or DMZ

Before we got there though, we were stopped and had all our passports checked by a military policeman who looked about 12

I would have laughed but the tour guide went to great lengths to say “no pissing about and no photo’s” (I paraphrased) so I kept my mirth to myself...

As you can see - there’s a train scheduled to the capital of North Korea - but until the accords are signed - this train will never run

Next we went to the Dora observatory from which you could see both North and South Korea

Not a great picture I’ll admit but you can see both North and South Korean flags flying

Apparently when North Korea found out the other flag was taller, they added 10 feet to their own, and then South Korea reciprocated 

Right now, North is winning after multiple improvements on both sides

It’s that kind of pettiness I can really get behind

The next stop was the 3rd infiltration tunnel dug by North Korea to invade the south

We we handed hard hats and the tunnel went 350m down at an 11 degree angle 

I couldn’t work out what the hats were for as the tunnel was high and smooth - turns out this was recently built just to access the real tunnel - which was running in water and 1m 60 high tops

This went on for about 250m until you reach the end , where you can see through a window into a further tunnel

The absolute best part was seeing a guy from our coach who stood at over 6 feet, constantly smack his head on the ceiling- at some points his head looked like a pinball, ricocheting everywhere - joss couldn’t have laughed any louder so he must have known it was  at his expense 

The pain in the arse though, apart from the walk up, was that no photos were allowed

I did, however, take some pictures OUTSIDE the tunnel an am especially pleased with this one the shows how the two sides of Korea are trying to come together:

Although as far as authenticity goes, I think this one is hard to beat 😂

And there was still time for this

We then did an unscheduled stop at a ginseng place, where the local tour guide spoke so quickly even we as one of the few native English speakers couldn’t understand her

God knows what the rest made of her

Hattie and I just couldn’t stop laughing

After this it was time for lunch which was a soup in keeping with today as it was nicknamed “US Army” soup, as originally it was made from the US leftovers

Again, Kieren knocked it out of the park - and it was delicious - good job we’d bought him a cutlery set

After lunch we went to the Korean War memorial 

Here are a few pictures - another quite moving place

The mood was lightened however, by the tour guide speaking to me one on one as we walked through the corridors- with him forgetting that his microphone was on  - just as well the conversation didn’t get too personal....

That was the end of the tour and we were dropped off at City Hall

From there we walked to Myeongdong and came across this

Before we found our way back to Hattie’s favourite pub

We then dropped Hattie and Kieren off and has a couple of “sharpeners”

We still made it for our pick up time and we all went to a German bar for chicken, sausages and fries - I’ve no pictures of that, but do have one of Hattie with her first beer

The food / drink / place was excellent

So excellent in fact that we got lost going home - but we did find this

Just goes to show - you can’t always be wrong :-)