dmz awesomeness…

After 3 hours of beautiful sleep last night, Gaz rudely woke me as promised at around 10am to get up and go check out the Demilitarized Zone on a tour. I laughed as I promised him I would get up straight away but of course I had absolutely no intention of doing anything else but falling right back to sleep. The hotel called through with a wake-up call 5min later and I took that as an omen that I should wake up and check out the DMZ, which is something I’ve always been interested in.

After 90 min of waiting in the lobby, our tour guide Julie finally arrived and we shipped off for the long bus ride up to the North Korean border. Julie tilted me at first, but she became very entertaining as time passed. She rattled on non-stop even though her English was not that great - I admired her pluck. We stopped at the most boring place in the world, a staging area for our incursion into the DMZ. We lost 2 people there, unexpected early casualties as a result of them not being able to understand Julie’s ETD instructions. Julie freaked out and started panicking, she gets very nervous when she gets near the DMZ and was blaming herself and being very neurotic so I tried to comfort her as we needed her to lead us on. After half an hour, we found the MIA american kids and continued on our mission.

We merged with another tour group at this stage and Julie was unimpressed to find the other tour guide was also called Julie. She annouced loudly that she would now be “Julie 1″ with the other guide to be addressed as “Julie 2″. I asked why the other guide couldn’t be Julie 1, and our Julie barked at me in frustration “I AM JULIE 1, OK!!” I cowered at this like a North Korean peasant and sank back into my seat.

We cruised into the tourist area where the Third Tunnel of Aggression tours are held. The Third Tunnel was one of four tunnels “found” by South Korean troops, ostensibly dug by North Korean forces as part of an invasion plan. I have my doubts about that, as the “evidence” presented was less than convincing. Whoever dug these tunnels did a bang up job though, the Third Tunnel is over 3km long and descends down 50m below the surface. We were told to leave our cameras, I followed the rules and then felt stupid when I saw everyone ignored the strict rules and were taking awesome photos in the long tunnels. The whole tunnel walk was a brutal adventure - had I known invading the South was going to be so much effort, I would have stayed above ground, or at least brought more comfortable shoes. After I cracked my head for the 5th time on the 5ft high ceiling, I asked Julie 2 who I should sue if I get a neck injury - North Korea or South Korea? She wasn’t helpful.

Back on the bus, some of the less patriotic members of our party questioned the validity of the claims that the North built these tunnels. Julie 1 was obviously horrifed. She is very much “South Korea AWESOME North Korea EVIL” and immediately tried to stamp out this rebellion, reminding us of the hard evidence the South Korean Tourist board posted explaining the three hard facts proving the North built the tunnels. She asked the group to volunteer these hard facts, offering gum to anyone who got it right. I really wanted some gum, so I came to her defence explaining to the simpletons in the group that the signs clearly stated that the rocks were painted with black coal even though there wasn’t any coal there, and obviously no one else could have done that but the North Koreans. Julie 1 didn’t really like my answer and didn’t want to give me any gum.

I was a little disillusioned after the Third Tunnel of Aggression, and took my frustration out on the Ball of Peace.

My relationship with Julie 1 was under some strain after this, so I turned to Julie 2 for leadership. Despite my early support for Julie 2 in the number-attributing political machinations, she didn’t put up with any of my shenanigans, and kept her watchful eye on me, but I think a mutual respect grew between us and we were able to work together in time.

We moved on to the DMZ Theatre where we were shown an absolutely fanfreakingtastic propaganda film. I loved this film so much. It opened with a cute little girl crying in a rice field and then cut to images of North Korean missile tests. The narrator was fantastic and used lots of emotive, dramatic language which resulted in me hating the North for making the cute little girl cry. The film finished on a bright note though, saying peace and reconciliation was inevitable and that the DMZ was no longer a symbol of conflict but a symbol of peace and tranquility with “man and nature living together as one” (as a computerized butterfly sailed across the screen). Even though the 1,000,000 troops currently stationed near the DMZ tend to discredit the narrator’s optimism, overall I thought the film was 8020 and it deserved a standing ovation.

This is a picture of APPT Chinese Poker champion Gaz fondling a statue outside the DMZ Theatre.

Julie 1 then told us about how the young men in North Korea were forced to do nine years of military service and could marry only after they did their nine years, when they were old men (she pointed at Graeme Putt when she said old men, which the immature members of our party found hilarious). Julie 1 then said after the men finished their nine years military service, they could dig themselves a little hole and live there with their wives and be simple peasant farmers. I had my doubts about this, but Julie 1 was very adamant so I found myself really hating the evil North Koreans. Julie 1 told us how millions of people were misplaced and men fled to South Korea when war broke out and were cut off from their wives. This is obviously tragic and I told Julie 1 about this movie I saw where these East Germans built a hot air balloon to sail across the Berlin Wall. I asked Julie 1 if any of these displaced men had done that to get back to their wives as it worked great in the movie I saw. Julie 1 said my idea was not practical and no one had done it. I told her I just wanted to help the men get back to their wives in North Korea and she was horrified that anyone would WANT to go *back* to North Korea. After some thought, I added, “Unless they found better wives in South Korea…?” and she smiled and seemed to like that thought.

We continued on to the viewing area at the top of a hill where we could look out onto North Korean soil. Here is a pic of me looking pretty sexy obv contemplating my hot air balloon idea. I think the logistics are very feasible, and even if it didn’t work out, it would be a lot of fun, so long as you took up a nice bottle of champagne and a continental breakfast with you on the flight.

Things were pretty tense with the armed forces stationed there obviously, these guys are trained killers ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice once they usher the next group of tourists through. They didn’t have much time for me, but after Julie had a quick private word with one of the officers, he agreed to let me be in a photo with him.

When it was time to leave, both Julie 1 and the officer were nowhere to be found. We were all looking for Julie 1 and the officer’s troops were all looking for him. Things were falling apart at the border, tourists were piling up, chaos and mass destruction seemed inevitable. Eventually, Julie 1 emerged from behind some barracks chewing gum. Gaz made some hilarious remarks which I think were insensitive and inappropriate and unfair to Julie 1. Sure, the situation looked bad, but Gaz had no hard evidence and I don’t think its fair for Julie 1’s good name to be sullied with such circumstantial innuendo.

I accused Gaz of wanting to defect to North Korea with Julie 1 and he didn’t deny, proving my suspicions correct. Later, he told me my hot air balloon idea was a good one, so I think we will see Gaz buying curtain material and propane in the near future.

After what really ended up being a fantastic day, we began the long ride back to Seoul. I think Julie 2 was sad to see me go, but these South Korean girls play their cards pretty close to their chests, so I may have misread that situation. Inspired by Jethro’s KL plane strategy, I locked up the back row of the bus and drifted off to sleep on the ride home. Julie 1 woke us all up when we reached Seoul to visit an amethyst factory, which I thought was a nice touch right in theme with our day, but no one was sucked in by that little Surfers Paradise scam so poor Julie 1 didn’t get any amethyst commission today.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and made me realise that South Korea is really a shining example of democracy and freedom.

Posted in Random |

No Responses to “dmz awesomeness…”

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment