August 15, Thursday: DMZ, Kim il sungs beach villa

Annyeonghaseyo!  This was the last day of our excursion outside of Seoul.  Korea is a really beatiful place, in the countryside.  There were mountains EVERYWHERE, greenery everywhere, and lots of rivers, and nice beach's.  This was the mountain range behind our hotel, which is apparently very famous in Korea.  I cannot find the name, but they are very similar to the Kumgang mountains in North Korea, which I will get to shortly.

So from here, we ventured on towards the DMZ, which is the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.  No military is allowed to be in this zone, which runs across the peninsula along the 38th parallel.  However, it is still the most militarized border in the world.

I realize it will be hard to tell from a picture, but everything past the small island connected to the beach is North Korea.  We actually got very unlucky on this trip compared to the last edition of the trip.  We went to the Goseong Unification Observatory, which is the last civilian viewpoint of the DMZ, but the previous trip went all the way to the JSA, the Joint Security Area, where there are actual North Korean soldiers and meeting rooms.  I was a little disappointed with this, but it was still very very nice.  

The Kumgang mountains are to the left, harder to see, but I will put some more pictures up.  They are very tall, and are considered to be the nicest mountains in the Korean Peninsula:

  

 
So yeah, it was still very interesting!  Being that close to one of the most notorious and isolated country's in the world.

The next destination was Kim Il Sung's beach Vila before the war.  It was put onto South Korean territory when the DMZ was put into place.

After this it was a 4 hour bus ride back to Seoul.  Only a few more days left...  Technically, only one with actual activity.