Saturday, March 8, 2008

Panmunjeom Madness!

A weeks ago, I was lucky enough to meet up with friends who were visited from Japan. I meet up with them on Sunday night. We went drinking in Seoul, went for Galbi (the greatest food ever!) and drank some more. We went to a wonderful bar where the guy's washroom had a door, 3 walls, and a shower curtain as a fourth wall. Beyond the shower curtain was the streets. So if you were to push back the shower curtain, you would see the road. You could also hear people talking while peeing.

There was also a moment where I drank too much and started dancing in the middle of the bar. "Paul being drunk and dancing isn't anything new" you might say, until you realize I'm talking about this dance.

I also met up with them two days later to go to Panmunjeom. It's basically the place where North and South Korean officials meet. You know, that famous stretch where there are North Koreans with binoculars looking into the South getting ready to shot at any moment and South Koreans in Taekwondo stance at all times in case any North Koreans rush the border. I actually crossed the border into North Korea while in the building where the two sides meet.

There were 6 English speakers, myself, three friends and a Dutch couple, and the rest of the bus and the entire other bus were Japanese tourists. This was my first contact with Japanese people since I left Japan. I just have to say that they completely rock. I miss Japanese people a lot, but I will continue making the best of the situation and take advantage of being in Korea.

After seeing the room where the two sides meet, we were brought to a tour to see into North Korea. We were talking about a tour on the other side of us, and I did the error of pointing. Evidentially, pointing is one of those things that can get you shot at Panmunjeom. From the front, it looks like I could be holding a pistol. The tour guide started yelling at me, because she was afraid of getting shot at or something. I also scarred some Japanese girls, who got scarred when the tour guide started yelling. I turned to them, said "sumimasen", to which they looked absolutely suprised, turned to each other and kept on saying "sumimasen" to each other and giggled.

We saw some other places along the DMZ, and we even saw propaganda village. For those of you who don't know, it's a fully built village where the North Koreans blast propaganda very loudly. No one actually lived there. But unfortunately, they stopped doing that in 1992, and people actually live there now.

We then did a second tour, the one where we explore the tunnels that were dug under south Korea in the 70's, 20 years after the ceasefire between the countries. Evidentially the North Koreans were looking for coal, and happened to be going towards Seoul. Oh, there's also the technicality that where they were blasting, there was no coal, it was all granite... There was granite painted black too to make it look like coal.

We also got to see into North Korea. It wasn't the best day, we didn't see the massive Kim Il Sung statue. We also saw the train station in the DMZ. It has the same sign as other subway stations, with a sign indicating that it will continue to Pyongyang.

So that's my fun I had in Panmunjeom. I went out that night with my friends from Japan. We went from bar to bar and I crashed at the hostel. I said goodbye to my friends as they left for Japan, and I went to work.

I drank so much the night before that I wasn't speaking loud in class. My students were actually quiet that day. They knew I was in pain. And the next day was what makes teaching in Asia hilarious: My ten year old students made fun of me for getting too drunk the night before.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Paul, the mental image of you doing that dance made my day.
- Julie Baker