Last Saturday was probably my most anticipated weekend excursion this semester, the USO tour of the DMZ provided by Koridoor. You need to book their tours a few weeks in adance if you want to get in on them, since they're very popular. Tours do leave from Pyeongtaek, which is closer to SoonChunHyang by about an hour; they require 30 people on them to leave though. Your best bet is to get to the Yongsan office near the National War Memorial of Korea - take the train to Samgakji station and use exit 10.

Because the tours leave early in the morning (mine left at 7:30 am), as I said in my video I highly reccommend staying at a guest house the evening before. Why? A jimjibang is your other cheapest option, but it's very uncomfortable to sleep in; a guest house might be 8,000 won more expensive but you get a bed and an actual pillow. From the one I stayed at it's only a 20 minute train ride to the USO office. Once everyone's accounted for and had their passports checked you get to board the bus, which will take you for an hour's ride to Camp Bonifas. This is a South Korean army base that serves as the staging point for the journey to the Joint Security Area.

From a slideshow briefing presented by the UN command, you can see how much taller the competing flag poles are in the DMZ villages.

North Korean guards, showing the military police armband they're supposed to be wearing but do not don any longer.

At Camp Bonifas you're only allowed to take photos inside the building, so I managed to get some of the slide show breifing the UNC presented. This breifing will inform you of the events that led up to the current situation at the DMZ, including history of the Korean War, the political situation in North Korea, and the like. You'll also be told about incidents that have occured at the JSA, inclduing a Soviet reporter defecting during a North Korean-organized tour. More about those incidents later.

The first real indication that you're going somewhere both dangerous and in its way special is when the UNC asks you to sign a waiver. Among the agreements your signature indicates is expected visitor behavior with regards to the North. Some are obvious, like no wearing clothing with, say, an American flag on it. Others include no gesturing in any way towards the North, and not doing anything 'that could be used for propaganda purposes by the North Koreans'. Also, no talking to the North Korean soldiers, which also seems like common sense. Ultimately don't do anything that will agitate the North Korean soldiers. After the security breifing, you'll board a military bus (with a South Korean driver) and be driven to the Joint Security Area itself. This is the first chance to get any kind of glimpse into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

South Korean soldiers, some half behind the conference buildings for cover, stand at 'ROK Ready' stance.

Handy way to tell whose buildings are whose: blue is the UN (USA/ROK mostly) and steel are North Korean.

Closer view of a North Korean building.

Standing in front of the 'recreation building', used for observation by the North, is the only North Korean soldier I saw the entire visit to the DMZ.

According to our American guide in one of those windows is a second North Korean soldier, taking pictures of the tour group.

Those speakers down the middle of the table also serve as the Military Demarcation Line, the border between the South and North.

The wall is scuffed because of South Korean security precautions: one soldier checks the door while another holds on to him. In the past it was just the first soldier, but North Korean soldiers hid in the translation booth and tried to grab him when the door opened.

Arriving at the JSA was really the first unsettling thing I experienced at the DMZ - maybe the only really unsettling thing. The moment you step out of the reunion hall on the Southern side, the North Korean recreation building is right there. Not only that but there's a couple of North Korean observation towers and a soldier watching with binoculars. We only saw one North Korean soldier, but the fact that they were filming us from multiple points was very odd. Knowing you're being watched by those guys is kind of creepy; but having the ROK guards made sure that overall I felt pretty safe. Really the North Korean guard seemed more bored than anything, pacing a bit as he watched the tour group come through. Only at one point did he bother using the binoculars.

Standing in the room where conferences are held was a different experience as well. The fact that one can stand technically within the border of North Korea is odd and kind of quirky but not really that different from just being in a building of any other sort. Getting to see where diplomats and soldiers of both sides meet was pretty cool in its own right - like I was part of that history, just for a moment. Actually I ended up spending most of our ten minutes in the conference room on the North Korean side... so I spent 9 minutes or so in the DPRK!

After the JSA you'll go on a brief tour of the other nearby sights, each of which has a story behind it. There's the Bridge of No Return, where POWs from both sides were lined up after the ceasefire and given one chance to go to the side of their choice. There would be no turning back once they stepped onto the bridge, which still stands today. Contrary to what film might show, it's just a small concrete bridge with metal pylons on either side. Just on the other side, overgrown as it is, is North Korea. I imagine there were guards nearby, which again meant we were being watched, but it's fine when you're safely in a bus on the South Korean side.

Another location of interest is the site of the Axe Murder incident. It used to be that the North had guard posts in the JSA regardless of the side, and could move guards in through the same areas as the South/UN. Four were built near an area where a cherry tree that obscured the vision of a UN observation post. When the UN soldiers tried to cut it down in accordance with the security agreement, the North Koreans attacked with axes and killed two Americans. This led to Operation Paul Bunyan, in which South Korean special forces were sent with Americans to cut the tree down. Air cover was provided, soldiers put on full alert, helicopters launched, and the USS Midway sent out to offer further air support. Safe to say the tree was cut down. Nowadays the axes used in the incident are housed in North Korea's DMZ peace museum, with the claim that their soldiers were acting in defense of a tree they'd planted. None of these sites were available for us to see on foot, as we were confined to the bus the whole time.The pretty landscape of North Korea, with a white gaurd tower visible amongst the trees.

One of my favorite stories was that of the flag pole wars between then two sides. Initially the North had one in their Propaganda Village, where most of the buildings were fake like a movie set. A large South Korean flag was then presented to the Freedom Village, and put on a taller (100 m) flag pole. Not to be outdone the North then responded by erecting an even bigger flag pole (160 m) on their side. The flag that flies from it has an estimated dry weight of 600 pounds, and takes 30 men to hoist! This in a way shows how some of the tension at the border is just kind of jingoistic posturing more than threats of war.

As for the village below the North's flag, it was once uninhabited; now it has residents and actual buildings because of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. It's a joint South/North Korean venture and ensures that the workers make salaries in US dollars of all currencies. Products are sold on both sides of the border, though in the South it seems to be limited to the DMZ. Workers are North Korean and the managers are South Korean.More views of North Korea.

The Bridge of No Return.

A photo of the Axe Murder Incident, clearly showing the North Koreans attacking with axes.

A North Korean soldier lays dead during the Soviet Defector Incident.

Another story of the JSA is the 1984 Soviet Defector Incident. During one of the North's DMZ tours, a Soviet reporter left his group and ran the full 69 feet to the UNC side of the area, calling for help. North Korean soldiers chased him, firing their weapons. This elicited an armed response by the US and South Korean guards, who killed three North Koreans and wounded five others. Meanwhile one American was wounded and a South Korean killed in defense of the defector. The North Koreans retreated and the defector then gained assylum in America; it's evidence that occasionally things do happen at the JSA, even if it's quiet most of the time. Defectors at the DMZ are rare, but occasionally it does happen - one officer seen in a picture below did so and is now a Major in the South Korean army. The most recent defector was a private Cha, who looks to have been the worse for wear when he arrived to the UN side of the line. On our bus tour the US Army guide pointed out a white phone that Northern defectors can use to call the South's troops for pickup and escort, should they make it that far.

A North Korean officer who is purportedly now a major in the ROK Army.

Private Cha, who defected to the South in 2007 at the DMZ.

A sign at Dorasan observatory.

Binocluars you can use to see Kaesong, the Propganda Village, a giant statue of Kim IlSung, and other things in Noth Korea.

Blurry but in the picture are birds, some of the wildlife that inhabits the untouched area between North and South.

After the JSA the next stop was also pretty interesting - Dorasan observatory. We did stop at the Third Infiltration Tunnel - a huge tunnel dug by the North in order to invade the South in the 1970s - but we were forbidden from taking pictures there. Dorasan provides an opportunity to use mounted binoculars to gaze into North Korea, including the major city of Kaesong. Nearby are also a 20 meter tall statue of Kim IlSung, the North's founder and eternal president, and the propaganda village with its huge flag. A jamming tower can also be spotted on a clear day. For just 500 won you get two minutes to take in the view through zoomed lenses.

It's not so good for pictures though. You're only permitted to take pictures from behind a clearly marked yellow line, and this doesn't let one get a good photo of the countryside or anything else. All of the pictures I did take from behind it have the binoculars in them, not to mention other tourists. However we did have the good fortune to get a breifing in Englsih from a South Korean soldier stationed at Dorasan. He explained where things were, what they were, and the like. It's not a common thing for this to happen, so if you have connections that can get such a briefing, do so.

Yes, this really is North Korean liquor. Brought to you by the Kaseong Industrial Complex I believe. It's available at most gift shops at the DMZ, and ranges in price dramatically from 14,000 won to upwards of 100,000.Our tour guide Sunny shows us the map of the intended rail line to the North.

South Korean soldiers enjoying a joke while on duty at Dorasan Station.Let's go to Pyeongyang! If only there was actually a train...

This message brought to you by the Ministry of Unification.

After stopping for lunch at a Korean restaurant we went to Dorasan Station, which is the farthest north that Korail goes. It was constructed with the hopes of establishing a rail line between Pyeongyang (capital of the North) and Seoul (capital of the South). While the North Korean government will not consent to such an idea it stands as a testament to the hopes that the two Koreas will be one once again some day. For 500 won you can step out onto the train platform and get a commemorative ticket. For free you can stamp a book or the like with the station's two commemorative stamps, proclaiming the distance to Seoul and Pyeongyang from the station. Army guards are stationed here as well, which makes the otherwise standard Korail station stand out and reinforce how close you are to the border.

So in total what was the experience like? It was a wide range of things - creepy while being watched by the North's soldier, fascinating when learning the history of various places, and even amusing sometimes like the flag pole story. Definitely worth a visit if you come to South Korea, especially if you're interested in history. However I might recommend finding a tour that allows you to stay in certain places longer than the USO tour did. Specifically Dorasan observatory would have been even better had we had some more time to make use of the binoculars to see into North Korea. All the same I'm happy that I went and it'll be one of my more interesting experiences to recall when I get back to Oregon.

You can email questions, comments, feedback and topic requests to: HangukMartyn@yahoo.com

And my followon project video blog can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/SuperBombadillo?feature=mhee