"This is called the peace bell... It doesn't work"

Tuesday! Ugh. Earliest morning. I had to get up at 6:30 for my meeting at 7:10 for the DMZ Tour! I met the tourguide at the Lotte Hotel, and we headed off. They told me the night before, when I confirmed the tour, that it was still available, eve though I was the only person. Oh my. This would be awkward. Luckily, there were 7 other people on the tour. Apparently they all booked between 8pm one day and 7am the next?
The drive to the DMZ takes about an hour, and on the way the guide told us about the history of the Koreas, and the DMZ itself. After every sentence, she asked, “Do you understand?” When we got there, our first stop was some bridge. I wasn’t listening. But next, we had to go into the military area, and a soldier with a big gun got on the bus to check our passports, and our tour guide STOOD BEHIND HIM STROKING IT! I was a little bit scared he was going to freak out and shoot us.
Next we went to the infiltration tunnel, which was pretty cool. North Koreans dug these tunnels from North Korea into South Korea, and they could move 30,000 troops through them in an hour. Unfortunately, they were “Korean-sized,” as our tour guide put it, which means that they come about to my chin. I had to walk through the whole thing hunched over, while old ladies laughed at me. We got helmets, and by the time we got back to the top, my helmet was all scraped to hell from me hitting it against the rock top of the tunnel. We also watched a hilarious propaganda video about “freedom fighters” and “communists.”
Next, we went to the Dora Observatory, which gives us our only view of the actual DMZ. The De-Militarized Zone is 2 km on either side of the border between North and SouthWe could see the two villages: South Korea’s is called Freedom Village, and North Korea’s is called Propaganda Village. Guess who named them? No one actually lives in Propaganda Village, but they have a staff who turn lights on and off in the buildings, to make it seem inhabited. Also found in the DMZ is the world’s largest flagpole. South Korea built a flagpole to show their national pride, or what have you. North Korea built a BIGGER one, just because they could.
Our last stop was Dorasan station. It’s this fake train station that’s “not the last stop in South Korea, but the first stop to North Korea”… Except for no trains actually go to North Korea. Nevertheless, you can get a stamp in your passport saying you’ve been to North Korea. On the drive home, the tour guide talked to all the people on the bus. There were two people from Denmark who have already been traveling for 2 months, and they’re not going home until April! They’d already done Russia, Mongolia, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Seoul, and they were going to do Tokyo, Honolulu, and then drive around the US for 2 months. Must be nice!
When we got back from the DMZ, I tried attempt #2 of the van Gogh exhibit. I even got in this time! None of his really famous paintings were there, but it was cool to even see not famous paintings by a famous painter. Oddly enough, though, the best thing I saw in the gallery was by a Korean artist. After here, I walked through Namdaemun Market, which gets more cracked out than I even thought possible for Christmas. Every vendor, for some reason, has life sized dancing Santas. In a place where its already hard to move for all the people, adding hundreds and hundreds of Santas does NOT help the matter.

My last stop of the day was going to be “Ballerina who Loves a B-Boy,” a dance show near Hongdae. Alas, it was cancelled, so I just browsed my way through Hongdae’s awesome stores (and to the Coffee Bean), and went home.