Lulu 到此一游: Day 3

Originaly, we planned to go to the Seoraksan mountain to catch the beautiful scenery of the autumn season. Tapi, tak jadi coz heavy rain on the previous week caused landslide and the place was closed. So, we joined a 1/2-day tour to the DMZ - DeMilitarized Zone. DMZ refers to the border between the North and the South Korea. Koreans are working towards reunification, as depicted by the photo below, where people are trying to seal up the broken globe. The 1/2-day tour costs KRW 44k pp.

We're visiting the Paju City where the 3rd tunnel is found. What is the 3rd tunnel? The story goes: North and South Korea has ceased fire. But the North Koreans secretly built tunnel to cross the border in order to reach Seoul and consequently to conquer the country. There are n numbers of tunnel being built. No one knows how many. So far, a few tunnels have been discovered. The 3rd tunnel being the nearest one to Seoul. It's merely < 55 km away from Seoul. A spy revealed this secret to the South Koreans in 1978.

The tunnel is 1635m long, 2m high and 2m wide. No camera is allowed, so, I can't show you how 'user-friendly' the place is. There're 2 ways to get in and out of the tunnel. We took a "roller-coaster" down to the tunnel and walked our way up thru another path. The tunnel is well-lit (no need to bring ur own torchlight), the ceiling is well-covered (no seeping water will drench u) and the floor is well-paved with rubber sheets (no slippery floor).

Along the border, there is a barb wire separating the 2 countries. 2 km north and 2 km south of the fence is the DMZ. After that, we visited the Freedom Bridge. It's said that 13000 prisoners of war crossed the bridge to freedom in the South.

Then, we visited the last train station in South Korea. Though the countries haven't been reunited, construction plans have already been carried out to link the 2 countries.

The tour ended at noon. From countryside, we came back to the civilised and busy city. We visited Namdaemun Market. It's a shopping heaven, just like our Petaling Street. In the photo below, my mom was standing with a line of money changers. Fun leh? If you ran out of money while shopping and couldn't find a bank, look for the gang of ah-ma. They are the unlicensed money changers.

Have I told u that I bumped into HSBC bank all the time when I go overseas? Next to the Namdaemun fort, I saw HSBC again. Namdaemun, the "mun" refers to "door"; the "nam" refers to "south", the "dae" refers to "big"; literally, it means South-Big-Door. The fort is supposed to be the south door. Coincidentally, there's a parade going on. It's as if some kind of time-zone crash was happening right before my very eyes that the ancient people were walking in line with the modern people.