Today is free and leisure day. No wake up call this time but we woke up a little late because my mom didn't set the right time zone. But some people came down to the buffet restaurant much more later than us. Whew. That'll give us time to eat.
When we got back to our room, we change into our proper clothes before our tour to DMZ. Mom booked the reservations yesterday night. And on time too. We booked the afternoon tour. At 11 am, our tour guide came to our hotel. It's a lady again. We don't know her name. What fun part is that we are the only ones on the coach going to DMZ. Yahoo!! It's like going on a private tour with your family.
Anyways, we're going to DMZ for some general facts about the borders between North and South Korea. As you all know, North Korea is a communist country, so no one is allowed to enter that country. If you do, the soldiers will shoot you to death. This is no joke. One tourist was shot by them years ago. I'm not sure when but it's horrible. Jenny told us this story about Korea. Before they were separated, Korea was just one country itself. When the Korean War started during 1950, they were separated. In North Korea, people there were suffering. No contact on the outside world, dying from starvation, some got no education etc.
We have about 1/2 an hour to tour around Imjingak before heading onto the bus with the other people who are touring to DMZ with us.
In the bus, there are some preschool children and college students following us on the tour. Of course, we just follow our tour guide. During our tour, we see snow flowing down on us. What a joy. Mom was more excited than me. We also passed some mine plantations on the way. We also got to see the history between North and South Korea during the war. Even we get to see both countries with the telescope on the deck. How cool is that? We get to see North Korea from the telescope even though we can't enter. There's one location that I didn't enjoy much. And it's the 3rd tunnel. It's so long to get down to the bottom. We have to wear construction helmets too. We try to go along the mine down below but unfortunately, there's nothing to see and dad's body is too tall to enter. So we head back up. And my, what a sweat. I was panting going up. This is more tough than going down. Whew! I was sweating too. But it's okay since it's still winter. So it's not that bad. Once we got up, the tour guide gave me a mint candy before heading to toilet. Kamsahamida :).
Before we go back to Imjingak and Seoul, we take some photos as memories. I pray that North and South Korea will unite again.
Once we're back on our private coach in Imjingak, we head back to Seoul. That was a fun and educated tour we had.When we arrive back in Seoul, we went to an Amethyst shop to learn about Amethyst, of course. Usually when you're in a jewellery shop like this, our tour people is always with us. But this time it's only us. So I felt a little awkward. Not use to privacy :). Anyways, after learning about Amethyst, the clerk tempt us to buy their jewelleries. Oh boy! More buying. Here we go again. Sooner or later, we're gonna go bankrupt. Just kidding. In the end, we did buy something not too expensive. After buying, I convince my mom to go before the clerk tempt us again and kiss our money good bye.
The coach drop us at Itaewon, also another shopping district but it's a foreigner place this time. So the locals there can speak English. We say good bye to our lovely tour guide for touring us around DMZ before going on our own way. We walk around as usual. But suddenly my back starts to itch. Maybe it's from the sweat inside our clothes. Luckily it got better in the end.
For our dinner, we had mushroom hotpot again. We ate heartily cause we never had lunch during the tour.
Before we took a taxi back to our hotel, we buy some delicious pastries to try from Paris Baguette bakery shop. We took the silver taxi back. Every tour guides convince us not to take the black taxi, as it is too costly. But it's cheaper after midnight.
In the lobby, some of daddy's colleagues came back same time as us. And guess what? Most of them went shopping again. I guess we're the only ones having a fun time at DMZ. He he.
It's time to rest our feet and pack our bags, because we're heading back home to Malaysia the next day.
To be continue.....
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