I have been so busy, I never have a chance to just sit down and write on here!
So, like I had mentioned in my past post... two weekends ago Tia and I had plans to go with some friends out to the country side as well as go visit the demilitarized zone. I'll talk a little bit about that now.
So that Friday night friends of ours rented what is called a Pension house. It was a little cabin out in the mountains, all wood inside but looked very traditional, or at least to us it did. There were seven of us and only one bed and a few mats to lie on. It was incredibly fun, probably one of the best times I have had in korea thus far. There was a stream right outside the pension house where we could hang out by, the scenery was breathe taking.
Not so important note: For all of you avid whiskey drinkers. One of our friends, Choi brought out something called Johnnie Walker Blue Label, apparently this is a big deal. We tried it and it was disgusting and incredibly strong. However, it is a $450 bottle of whiskey so I felt the need to add this to my blog to brag? hahaha
On the Sunday of that weekend we went to the Demilitarized Zone in between North and South Korea. Essentially it is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between the two countries. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th Parrallel on an angle. It is 250 kilometres long, approximately 4 km wide and is the most heavily militarized border in the world. Of course we weren't allowed to go in, so we just looked across from the outside with some binoculars looking into North Korea. Actually on that note there are a few towns within the DMZ that were located there before the zone was created. Those people don't have to pay taxes but have to stay within their villages 260 days of the year. Needless to say, if anything were to go wrong they would be right in harms way.
With such few amounts of people being allowed in the DMZ it has actually become a nature reserve. There are endangered plants and animals that live in the area. Some animals they named were, the red crowned crane, an asiatic black bear, an Amur leopard and a Korean tiger. We also went through some tunnels that the North Koreans had dug to try to invade South Korea. There have been four tunnels discovered since the 1960s but there are probably way more then that! The tour itself was beautiful and we got to see so much, however it was the history I liked learning about the most.
Growing up in Canada we never learn about Korean history but its extremely tragic how the two nations are divided. The countries had been one for thousands of years and only divided now for 75 odd years. People have relatives they may never be united with and to hear about how the North Korean people are suffering is just really sad. There are all these memorials and statues made waiting for the day when two countries will be unified again. Bells waiting to be rung and bridges waiting to be opened the day unification happens. Something hopeful that I heard from a coworker is that the South Korean government is thinking about implementing a Unification tax, so one day when North Korea collapses they will be prepared to support its people.
The last thing I learned which was my favourite is about the founder of Hyundai automobiles, Chung Ju-yung. Apparently, when he was a boy he ran way from his impoverished family stealing a family cow with him. He later went on to start his business and obviously became very successful. He must have felt bad about the cow that he has stolen previous years earlier and returned 1001 cows to North Korea which has now been closed off by the DMZ, 1 for the cow he had stolen, 1000 for the interest.
On a lighter note I tried North Korean beer which was amazing, and North Korean Soju (rice wine, specialty to both koreas?) which was deadly.
Anyways thats enough for this time
around! I will put up pictures of this shortly!
No comments:
Post a Comment