South Korea

Our next stop on our tour of Asia was South Korea. Little did we know the day before we arrived, North Korea did some nuclear missile testing but that didn't stop us visiting the DMZ (Demilitarized zone).

This picture shows, in the distance, the North Korea flag. We were able to look through these binoculars into North Korea but were not able to take pictures from this point. There was a yellow line about 20 feet back where pictures were allowed. Which was interesting because they actually had a military official watching all of us. We were told that if we did take pictures over that yellow line that our cameras could be confiscated. We were able to walk down a tunnel that the North Koreans built to infiltrate the South Korea side. The North tried to disguise it by saying that the South Koreans had dug it. Unfortunately we were not able to take our camera down into the tunnel.



As we were driving to the South Korean "visitor center" of the DMZ, we passed these fences. Our tour guide told us that the white colored rocks in the fence had a purpose. They are rocks that are covered with white cloth. Each rock is numbered and every morning the South Korean army would patrol the fence to make sure that all of them were in correct order and none were missing. I guess the rocks would drop if the fence moved at all- this would indicate if any foul play happened during the night. Crazy!

After the DMZ tour we stopped at a local restaurant to have Korean BBQ. It is much like a fondue restaurant in that they cook meat and vegetables in a beef or chicken broth. Of course it was served with rice and Kimchi. The whole meal was really good.

Our next stop was at Samsung where we learned a lot about the history of Samsung and how they run the company. The executive who spoke with us was pretty humorous and told some pretty risky jokes. It was funny to see the reaction from the directors.

After a long 6 hour bus drive through Korea we made it to Ulsan, Korea to visit Hyundai Heavy Industries. We arrived late that night and had planned to visit the company the next morning. I was impressed to see that the executive we were planning to meet the next day came to the Hotel Hyundai to greet us. He even brought his kids. It was 10:30pm when we arrived. I guess it is a traditional thing to greet your guests and he wanted us to feel comfortable. This was the tour that Ryan was most excited about and unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos while we were there. This picture is from our hotel across the street from the plant.

We were in South Korea for a day and half and never did make it into Seoul. It was a fast trip.