Showered, and left apt at 5:30 to head to McDonalds to get a quick bite
and meet everyone for our trip to the DMZ.... rainy rainy day..
Aaron and Jeong Mi reserved a mini van taxi service to drive us to Seoul
to the Lotte Hotel where our tour was to begin. We had some time to explore the
beautiful hotel and its shops.
On wall by Lotte Hotel restaurant
We were traveling with a group of Japanese tourists so there were two translators:
one for our group and one for their group. Our English speaking Korean young lady gave us a lot of information about the area and the discovering of 4 tunnels aimed towards Seoul dug by North Koreans to infiltrate S. Korea. They feel that there may be as many as 17 - 20 other tunnels that have not been found yet. Our tour included a ride to descending into the third tunnel. We then walked through a part of it. We walked about 450 meters underground to about the border between North and South Korea. The tunnel is roughly 73 meters underground. We next saw the Dora Observatory where we looked into dense fog at N. Korea. We then saw the Dorasan Railway Station which has tracks both to places in South and North Korea. There are no trains to the north at this time. The station has been constructed to handle North/South Korean rail traffic (with a customs area, etc.). This is with the hope that the two Koreas will be one again someday. The rest of the tour included seeing Unification Village, Imjingak (freedom bridge), and lunch. We then returned to the Lotte Hotel. We could not do the JSA (joint security area) which included the mac conference room, freedom house to view whole area of Panmunjom, and bridge of no return due to Aaron and Jeong Mi traveling with us. (Jeong Mi is not allowed to go into North Korea by law.) But the tour we took gave us a very good taste of what the war was like, and what relations were like and continue to be like. We could not take a lot of pictures on this tour (only in certain places), so go to our link to check out our DMZ tour pics:
https://picasaweb.google.com/embruckart/Korea2011_629201102#5623767863951864098
After our bus returned us to the Lotte Hotel we took the subway to Bupyeong for the underground shopping experience where there were rows and rows and rows of tables and vendors selling their products.
This large shopping complex had many stores selling the same stuff and while some people can be talked down we did not have the energy or see anything we really wanted. We split up by groups and Kelly and I got a beverage and ice cream and just enjoyed sitting for a bit. We all met at appointed time and walked out of the subway to meet Jeong Mi's parents where we all shared a delicious Korean Chinese meal together. We then walked to her parents' apartment where Mr. Park shared some of our two day vacation pics, wedding pics, and the wedding video he is creating. At some point we will have a copy of the wonderful events we did together.
We subway traveled back to our stop and Kelly, Melissa, Alan, and I took in the "free" sauna and hot tub experience located right in our apartment building!! Jeong Mi explained how the whole procedure worked for the ladies and Aaron explained it for the men. We were all given shorts/shirt sets and the ladies headed off to the Ladies only section... where Melissa and I were introduced to our first nude hot tub, cold tub, showering, walking around experience.. needless to say, I did not take any pictures.. but I also was thankful for my distance vision difficulties so I did not have clear pictures of the women as they soaked or shampooed or lotioned themselves in various areas of the "ladies" only area.. Alan and Kelly went to the men's only area.
We all met in the shared area wearing our shorts/shirt combos where one could experience an ice room, pebble room, salt room, and sauna room. Televisions and lounge chairs were also available in this area... interesting experience that we do not know if we will be doing again soon.
Another exciting and full day has come to a close.
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