Korea is a country of shopping and fashion. Seoul was the only trip where we didn’t have many plans and depended on friends to show us around. Our friends brought us to the best Korean BBQ places, the cheapest shops for clothes and the best dessert places too! We stayed in Myeongdong, a well-known shopping district of Seoul. If I could stress one product in the market of Myeongdong, it would be ‘skincare’. I couldn’t walk five steps and not encounter a store selling skincare products.
One place I made sure we had to go was the DMZ. That was one of the oddest experience I had in my life. Apparently, only foreigners are allowed to go on this tour and if you are a Korean citizen, it takes stacks of forms to be permitted to go. There were some really strict rules on the bus. We weren’t allowed to take pictures unless it was at certain areas or the soldier in the bus would scream at you. When we reached the JSA, everyone had to line up in pairs and be led by a soldier to the conference room. It was surreal to see the line dividing North and South Korea and to be in the conference room where you could “cross- over” to North Korea. Depending on the situation and day, you could have one to five minutes in the room before having to leave. Turned out, we came on a tense day and we had to leave within three minutes. Our guide mentioned how a wrong step could literally lead to a shootout between the two sides. At the end of the JSA building, there was a gift shop where you could buy merchandise of the DMZ. Talk about the weirdest place to have a gift shop.
JSA
They also showed us this video about DMZ when we reached the area where one of the incursion tunnels was found. This video was so freaking weird! The beginning had explosions and scenes of war, people speaking about the horrible battle between the North and South. Then all of a sudden, there’s a prancing baby deer and a message about how the DMZ is so peaceful and great. It literally said “DMZ forever!” at one point. I came out of that thinking “Was that a joke? Did I actually watch that video?” If you ever get the chance to go to the DMZ, it’s worth the money. It’s something you have to experience to get the full impact.
On a lighter note, another place we went to was a place called Namiseom Island. Now, this was also weird, but in a very good way. It was like the island didn’t know what it wanted to be, so it added a little bit of everything– metal sculptures of bugs, teddy bears in trees, snowmen decorations, giant naked statues. There were even ostriches on the island! Not a zoo, just ostriches. It’s famous for being a film location of a very popular Korean drama; many couples like to spend a day there. This is just a taste of what I saw there:
Also near Namiseom Island was a place called Petite France. It’s a tiny town that looked like a French village where it pays homage to the book Le Petit Prince. I would have never imagined I could visit France in Korea. It was really cute and beautiful, a perfect place to spend an hour or two.
Of course, we couldn’t leave Seoul without visiting the Seoul Tower. On the night we went, it was packed with people, the lineup to go on the bus was crazy. It took 4 buses before my cousin and I could go on. When we reached the top, we didn’t even go up the tower because the wait was 80 minutes. I mean, the view was pretty much the same from up there anyway that we weren’t too disappointed. Instead of taking the bus down (because the line up there was even worse), we decided to walk down. It took about 30 minutes to get down from the mountain, but I think it was worth the walk to get this picture.
