Visit to the Border

One main tourist attraction when visiting South Korea is the border between North and South Korea, which is actually kind of crazy. The area is called the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). The DMZ is a strip of land that runs along the 38th parallel and acts as a buffer between the two countries. The DMZ is the most heavily militarized border in the world.

In the middle of the DMZ is the Joint Security Area (JSA) where forces from both sides monitor the area. Soldiers from both sides may patrol the DMZ area, but they cannot cross over the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). So basically the only thing that separates the two countries is a slab of concrete. The tour of the DMZ allowed us to go into the JSA and see the MDL. We were able to see soldiers from both sides up close. Kind of crazy! In the picture below, the concrete line between the two buildings is the MDL. The soldiers in green are ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers, from South Korea, and across the way you can see a soldier from North Korea on the steps of the building.

The blue building on the left in the picture above is a meeting room where representatives from both countries come together to discuss agreements and such. There is literally a line in the middle of that building that divides the countries. Here's me on the North Korean side with a ROK soldier. That's right, I was in North Korea.

The tour also brought us to different parts of the DMZ where we could look into North Korea.

The whole experience was really strange. You could feel how high tensions were and felt an incident could erupt at any moment. Luckily, we were shown around with military security forces. All in all, it was a very surreal experience, but I'm glad I got to see it.