Korea Late Winter Sonata 2015 -Seoul - DMZ Village/Bridge of No Return/Hacked Tree incident

And so we boarded the bus again which will take us to a higher point where we are able to see the DMZ propaganda village of North Korea side where it is built to attract South Koreans to cross over and stayed. Sounds funny to me since I think no South Koreans in their right mind would defect over. Then again, you never know human minds.

Group members trying to look out to the North side

Our guide explaining to us

It was believed that the buildings there are empty nests. Our liaison told us that during night time if you look over to the buildings, the top levels are most lighted and the light density gets dimmer as we descend. So it was concluded that there are no stairs inside, just empty buildings where the lighting are fixed on the top most level shining downwards which explains the uneven lighting density observed.

Then again, no one can confirm this assumption.

Another "place of interest" is a huge ass flag pole that was erect to counter the South's flag pole. Really huge since we can see clearly from where we are standing which is quite some distance away.

Also there are multiple guard post along the border, not so much to prevent people from entering but to prevent people from leaving. We cannot see whether there are any guards inside but was told that should be even we cannot see them.

Spot the large ass flag pole

Everyone tries to take pictures of the opposite side.

Its really funny that we spent time taking photos of barren lands and nothing much but everyone still want to leave some memories of this place.

Comparison of the flags

Since it is still winter season, everywhere we see are barren landsand more barren lands and it was really chilly to be standing her. On top of it there is pretty much nothing to see so the stop was brief and we moved on back to the bus.

Then we did a drive pass an axe tree accident site when both sides clashes over chopping down of a tree which results in deaths of soldiers. There is a plaque now in place of the tree to commentate those who perished in the unfortunate incident.

The plaque

And the next drive past point is Nulmoon Bridge or The Bridge of No Return where (if my memory didn't failed me ) repatriate of each country's POW was done back during the just after war days.

Nulmoon Bridge

After this drive past, we were taken back to the main building where we watched a documentary of the history of the Korean War which is essentially not over yet. There are also a display hall of various artifacts of the war.

With this we ended the tour at DMZ area and we proceed to the next destination, Dora Observatory and then lunch.