Korea

Seoul

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Seoul

I ended up staying a bit long in Seoul than expected. This is because I dallied in booking my flight to Buenos Aries. If I want to leave earlier, the cost of the flight would have been considerably more. One of the benefits of not working, is that time doesn’t matter too much.

Good Place to Stay

I stayed in small hostel near the Honjik University. This a happening little area, with lots of bars, restaurants and ‘street life’. The contrast with Japan was palpable. In many respects, the cities in Japan, even Tokyo are dour places. My immediate impression of Seoul was that it is more ‘Asian’ and more relaxed. There certainly seemed to be more young people around. If think is reflects that demographics of the place, not just that I was near universities.

Palaces

I checked out the palaces. I guess I should be more interested in ‘older’ Korean history, but after Japan, one palace started to look just like any other.

Metro Underground Railway

The Seoul metro system is impressive. Lots of lines, covering most of the city. The stations I saw, all had the dual door system – doors on the platform lining up with those on the train.

One issue though is the paper maps in the tourist guides. They cover all the network on small pieces of paper. This results in the writing being almost too small to read. There is one version on a large page. My skiing friends managed to find a tourist booth with that version.

A simple option used in other cities, e.g. London and Paris is to print a map that only includes the central part of the network where 95% plus of tourists would travel. This means that the printing is large enough for old coots like me to read.

I guess that other thing is that most people us smart phones to get around and don’t need paper maps.

Another whinge I have is that on the ‘circle line’, the indicator board on the train shows that train moving in the opposite direction to the train’s actual movement. Check out the video.

End of the whinging.

Museums

Seoul has great museums. The cultural museum has a better building than its contents (check out the photos of the aluminium sausage like thing) but was interesting. The National Museum is huge and very interesting. There was also a small museum (that can’t remember the name of) that was covered Korea’s economic development very well.

Probably the most impressive museum was that War Memorial. It has some excellent exhibits and material on the Korean War and is impact on the soldiers and the people of Korea.

Shops

This a serious shopping town. There are a lot of upmarket shops that look just like other upmarket shops in other big cities, with all the usual brands. This is a great refection on the wealth of the place, albeit these shops do nothing for me.

There is an electronic shopping centre on seven levels. I defy anyone to be unable to find the electronic gadget (phone, computer, – new or used) they want in that place.

River and National Assembly

I took a walk to and along that river from the area I was staying. It was a bit bleak, given it is still winter. However, it was great to see lots of cyclists.

The National Assembly is impressive from the outside. Apparently you have to register days in advance to be able to tour inside. That is a pity in a democracy.

It was good to see solar panels on the government building next to the National Assembly.   It would be great to see that in Canberra.

Flickr Links

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk8G1MeU

War Memorial

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk9djryo

 

Korean DMZ

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Korean DMZ

One of the things I wanted to see while I was in Korea was the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.

Not Many Contested Borders Left in the World

I have a bit of an interest in ‘contested borders’. Since the fall of the ‘Iron Curtain’ in Europe and the opening up of China, there are very such borders left in the world. This is of course, the Ukraine and Russian border and the Kashmir border area between India and Pakistan that are contested. However. I am don’t know of one, other than that Korean DMZ, that is a tourist attraction.

I can recall the old East and West Germany border very well. In November 1984 I was in East Berlin on a Department of Foreign Affairs trip. I was staying in a hotel next to the ‘Berlin Wall’. I will post about that later.

Bus Tour of the DMZ and PSA

The woman that runs my Seoul Hostel told me that there were two tours of the DMZ. One was of only the DMZ and the other, a longer tour, included that Joint Security Area (JSA) that lies within the DMZ. She strongly recommended the later.

My Balmain Host, who had also arrived in Seoul had expressed an interest in seeing the DMZ. He also took the recommendation that we should take the longer tour. You are required submit your passport details to the tour operator over 48 hours prior to the tour. Presumably some sort of check is performed. You are also required to carry your passport on the tour.

I was picked up by a small mini bus which took me to a large hotel where the other tour participants (60 in all) had assembled. The tour Guide, Michelle, introduced herself and started to talk. She didn’t stop talking for the whole time she was with us.

The bus headed north from Seoul. We passed the Imjin River which forms part of the border with North Korea. You can see the North across a large body of water.

It is only 40 kilometres before you reach the DMZ area. The first stop was the Freedom Bridge. This is where prisoner exchanges took place during the Korean War.   It was bitterly cold. Our guide was very precise as to how much time we had at this stop. Given that it was so cold, no one was late returning to the bus.

Tunnel No 3

The next stop was Tunnel No 3. This is one four known tunnels that the North Koreans have built under the DMZ with the intention of sending troops into the South. This one was discovered in October 1978. It is now a major tourist attraction.

The South Koreans have built a tunnel down to the ‘Tunnel No 3.’ This tunnel is quite steep, but high and lined with concrete. The actual ‘Tunnel No 3 is very small and any who is not ‘vertically challenged’ has to stoop. You are provided with ‘hard hats’. They are needed. It is virtually impossible to avoid hitting your head on the up and back along the tunnel. A wall has been constructed in the tunnel at the border between the North and the South.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Tunnel_of_Aggression

Dora Observatory

We were then taken to the Dora Observatory which overlooks the DMZ. From the observatory you can see two flags, one South Korean and the other North Korean. They stand above the only two villages that lie within the DMZ. Both flags fly from very large poles. Apparently there has been a poles ‘arms race’ wherein both sides built bigger and bigger poles. This culminated in the North building a 160 metre pole, the largest in the world. At that point, the South gave in, theirs is only 100 metres high.

Train Station

The last stop of this part of the tour was a bizarre train station.

Prior to the separation of the country into the North and South Korea’s, there was a railway line that ran the length of the peninsular. Naturally, after the war, the line was cut.

In 2000 it was decided to reconnect the line. This involved the clearing of minefields and the construction of 17 kilometres of track. A station was also built on the Southern border. The work was completed in 2003.

You visit the station on the tour. It is a bit surreal in that there are only two trains a day and they only run to Seoul. Only one train has ever run north.

Since the line was completed, relations with the North have been problematic, and while the bloke with strange haircut continues to play up, it is unlikely that any train will run again soon.

At this point in the tour, those that were only seeing the DMZ headed back to Seoul. The remainder of us, were ‘treated’ to a lunch. Actually, is wasn’t too bad.

On to the JSA

We were introduced to our new guide who would be taking us into the JSA. She told us that she was “an English speaking Guide”. That was about the only bit of what she said that I understood. The other bit that she said that was vaguely intelligible was that photographs could only be taken at certain times and there were only certain things that could be photographed.

The JSA is an area of about 800 square metres that lies, as its ‘Joint’ name suggests, where both parties – the North and the United Nations (South) – have joint access.

When it was initially set up, this was the case. The actual border between the North and the South (the Military Demarcation Line – MDL) runs through the JSA. However, within the JSA personnel from both sides were permitted to move freely across the border. In other words they could ‘mingle. This occurred from its establishment in 1953 until August 1976.

On the 18th of August 1976, North Korean Guards murdered two UN soldiers. From that point on the MDL has been marked within the JSA and neither side crosses that line. The exception is in the buildings described below.

The Buildings Straddling the MDL

At the centre of the JSA there are three low rise timber building that straddle the MDL. It is in these buildings, that representatives from the North and the South meet.

These small building lie between larger concrete buildings, one on the South and similar one on the North.

The negotiators enter the smaller building from the larger building. On the tour you follow the path into the large building and down into the ‘negotiation’ buildings.

From the steps of the large building you can look across to the North’s ‘large building’. On the steps of that building (about 150 metres away) you can see a North Korean Guard. Below you, you can see UN Guards staring the North Korean Guard down. This the famous shot.

Photographic Frenzy

As we were on the steps we ‘told’ that we could take photos for “one minute”. Apparently we also told that we could only take photos in front of us. I missed that bit in that I could only vaguely understand about 1 in 100 of the words that the guide uttered.

I must have appeared to have taken a photo to the left of straight ahead. A guard was onto to me like a flash and checked my camera. I had not taken a photo to the left, but I had taken a photo behind where I was standing. That was duly deleted. The ‘Free World’ is doubtless much safer as a result of that deletion.

When then moved in to the buildings where the negotiations between that North and the South take place.

I suggest you look at the Flickr photos and the video. The video tells it all.

The Garmin Link show where all this is at.

Comment

It you are in South Korea, the DMZ tour is a must do.

Flickr Link

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk8z47nH

Garmin Link

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/716120681

Busan South Korea

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Busan

I took the jet ferry from Fukuoka to Busan. It was a fairly quick trip and quite smooth.

I had booked into a hostel located in Haeundae. This turned out to be on beach to the east of the down town area. The hostel took a bit of finding, as it was on the 4th floor of a building that looked a bit dodgy from the outside. As it turned out, it a really good place.

After checking in, I went for a walk in the local area. It was obvious that winter is not the best time to see this part of Busan. The beach was bleak, however the posters around the place, showed that it is clearly a happening spot in summer.

I found a restaurant offering seafood. I wasn’t sure what I was ordering, but it turned out to be a soup that was cooked on my table. It was good.

Bus Tour

The weather was really miserable the next day – cold and wet. I decided to get a ‘hop on hop off’ bus ticket that allowed you to take two routes through the city.

Busan reminded me a bit of Hong Kong. It is right on a harbour and the nearby mountains constrict the area that can be built on. The result is lots of high rise buildings. There is also a huge bridge that cuts across the front on the central part of the city. The equivalent would be building a bridge from Garden Island to Pyrmont on the southern side of Sydney Harbour.

The tour takes you past the container docks. They are huge and obviously, very automated. It also passed the ship yards. They are also on massive scale. Korea is the leading shipping building country.

I stopped off at the National Maritime. It is a really interesting place. The Koreans are clearly very proud of their shipping and ship building industries.

I also stopped off at the fish markets. It was too late to see the auctions, but I did wander around the outdoor markets. The photos and video are worth look.

I also wandered around an underground shopping centre, selling cheap clothes. It seemed to go on forever.

Another Seafood Meal

I had another seafood meal near the hostel.

Back at the hostel I got into a conversation with a Hong Kong Chinese bloke who was staying there. He is about my age and runs his own ‘hotel consultancy’ business. He said he said in hostel because he stays in a lot of up market hotels for business and tires of them. He had some interesting things to say about his clients and projects. He works in Japan, Korea, Malaysia and California.

Amazing Shopping Mall

I had already decided to travel to Seoul the next day. The HK bloke told me that I had to see the Shinsegae Centum City Shopping Complex. He said the Spa in the complex was a ‘must do’.

I am not into shopping malls – see my post on Dubai. However, I must say this place was worth a look. It is registered by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest shopping complex in the world.

The spa is amazing. There are about 10 bath pools with different temperatures – hot, very hot, cool etc and saunas of differing temperatures. There are separate spas for men and women.

There is also a another huge area with ‘relaxation’ rooms of different themes – ‘sound waves’, timber scented room, Roman room, Egyptian rooms etc. You lie in these rooms and think. These rooms are mixed.

There is also a golf range and an ice rink.

All a bit over the top but impressive.

On the Train to Seoul

It was about 6.00 pm when I finally got on the train to Seoul. The train was not up to the Japanese Shinkansen standards, but quick enough for the short trip north.

Flickr Link

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk8mh2Fv