After our trip up to Seoul last weekend and the disappointment of not being able to accompany Brian and Cora on their tour of the DMZ and Joint Security Area, I (LeeAnne) figured I would have to leave Korea without seeing the North Korean border. To my great surprise, though, I had an unexpected and impromptu visit to the DMZ in Gangwan-do province on Tuesday, May 25. While on the senior retreat in this gorgeous part of Korea, our "hiking" excursion turned into a guided tour of the DMZ. In this part of the country the DMZ isn't heavily protected with soldiers, although we did see quite a few military vehicles and personnel in the area. You can walk right up to a stone wall and look down at multiple rolls of barbed wire that edge a swath of forest stretching a few kilometres into the distance. That forested area is the DMZ and apparently is home to many land mines and a few military buildings on a ridge. The mountain peeking up beyond the greenbelt in these photos is in North Korea. After our surprise visit to this site (which is also home to a huge monument in honour of the 300,000 South Korea and Chinese soldiers who died on this site during a huge battle in the Korean War) we also visited a bombed-out shell of a building that was constructed by the Japanese during their occupation and later used by the North Koreans during the war. After the war ended the building was left to serve as a reminder of what happened during those terrible and traumatic years.
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