The DMZ is about an hour North of where we live. The above picture was when we were officially leaving Seoul.
We visited Odusan Observatory, which has one of the closest vantage points to look into North Korea. Clara was not too fussed on our outing to the border, but actually seemed to really like it once we were there. She spent quite a long time looking through the binoculars and ended up counting 20 North Korean people in the village across the river. You could see some homes, a threshing floor, a memorial, some fields, and people walking around. The living conditions didn't look great. Many of the windows had blue plastic hanging in them. I'm not sure if it's accurate, but information online indicates that many of these buildings near the border on the North Korean side are just for show.
I couldn't get a very good picture of the North Korean village via zooming in on my phone, but you can see a lot of detail through the binoculars. Erica wasn't able to join us due to working on a theatre production at school. We'll need to return again at some point.
At low tide it looks like you could walk most of the distance between the countries - if you could get through the soldiers shooting at you. Defections across the DMZ have been extremely rare. North Koreans usually escape via the Chinese border, and then try to make their way to South Korea. Once in South Korea they are housed in special centres for two years, while the government tries to determine if they are spies, and teaches them new skills for life in South Korea.
Clara found her name on a poster.
Taking a cable car on a short trip across a river in the DMZ. From here we could see the Freedom Bridge (where prisoners of war were exchanged). We also went for a walk to a look-out on the other end.
The Freedom Bridge.
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