The DMZ in Korea...kinda creepy cool!

We have been in Seoul for 3 days and have loved this city. It feels very safe here and it is easy to get around. The mountains that surround the city are amazing and there are temples and palaces and museums galore.

We took a bus tour to the DMZ yesterday with our good friends Joey and Suzy. It was a very educational day for us and also made us feel so ignorant about the Korean war and the politics that led up to it. We all felt like there was some kind of gap in our schooling about this war and we were so glad to understand the past and visit the living history at the 38th parallel.

The most shocking things we learned is that South Korea has discovered 4 separate underground tunnels that the North Koreans secretly built (starting some time in the 1960's). The tunnels are huge and cross the DMZ into South Korea coming as close as 52 km to Seoul. The tunnel that we visited can allow 30,000 troups to move through in one hour. We wore yellow hard hats and went deep into the tunnel. The tour guide showed us how the North Koreans painted the sides and ceiling of the tunnel with black paint to try to disguise it as a coal mining tunnel. Realize that all of this is against the peace treaty that divided Korea at the 38th parallel in 1953. The North Koreans deny everything even though the 4th tunnel was discovered as recent as the 1990's. The South Korean government said they found out about the tunnels from a North Korean defector who had helped build them.

Other highlights of our tour included visiting an observation deck where you could peer into North Korea (pictures were not allowed). We learned that North Koreans can visit and work in China and that is all. If they leave the country and do not return, the rest of their family gets the death penalty.

We also saw a lot of ginseng farms near the DMZ area (it is a $70,000,000 yearly export business). They told us that the first generation of farmers lost many arms and legs to land mines. There are still over 1,000,000 land mines in the DMZ and they say they hear them go off every now and then from a deer stepping on one in the woods. The gingseng has to grow 6 years before it can be harvested and it is grown underground and covered with huge black tarps. It has to grow in complete darkness.

Last but not least, we learned that 8,000,000 people (families) were separated by the war. They will never get to reunite. It was not until the 1980's that the two governments arranged a 3 day meeting conference where they allowed families to see each other for the first time since the war. We saw a video clip on this and Mike and I were moved to tears. After the three days were up they had to go back to their separate countries. They still arrange these meeting conferences every now and then so separated families can see each other.

We will upload pictures and tell about the rest of our trip after we fly half-way across the world.