A view from North Korea (Friday, August 2)

Today I went on an all-day tour to the DMZ (demilitarized zone).

This was our first look at North Korea from the Dora Observatory.  You had to take photos at a distance behind a yellow line plus it was very foggy.

We also visited the 3rd tunnel that the North Koreans had made for infiltrating South Korea.  It was discovered in 1978.  I have no pictures of this as we were not allowed to take a single thing with us on the underground monorail (descending 73m) or on the walk through the underground tunnel.


As a joint venture North and South Korea agreed to build a railway line connecting the counties in 2004.

I am at Dorosan train station where trains ran empty (testing purposes) to Pyongyang for 1 year; none have run since.

Our last stop was the Joint Security Area (JSA).  While the above attractions are quite heavily patronized by tourists, the JSA is not.  The JSA is the most forward location in the DMZ.  In order to visit the JSA I had to sign a Declaration of my understanding that death was a possible result of my visit.

The blue buildings are all United Nations Command (UNC) buildings.  The Military Demarcation LIne (MDL; border) runs through the middle of the buildings, left to right.  So the building you see in the distance is in North Korea.

This is the MDL as seen by me while I am standing in North Korea.