Good morning! It was the day I was looking forward to the most for our Seoul holiday - our tour to the DMZ!

I booked the tour online at www.dmztours.com a month before we went to Seoul. If you book it any earlier than that they will tell you to book it only a month before the tour date because that's when they get their military training schedule (at the DMZ).

Really glad E-main was super game to come along for the DMZ tour since it's a little offbeat for a trip to Seoul, but I find the whole situation with North Korea fascinating and this tour was definitely one of the main reasons why I wanted to come to Seoul!


We wake up bright and early at 6:00am when the temperature was 4 degrees Celsius (Winter is that you?) to make our way to the Plaza Seoul Hotel for the 7:30am tour pick up - the nearest to our Airbnb since the tour picks you from hotels only.

Another reason why I chose this tour because a) It was the only one that replied promptly when I emailed to make a reservation b) The contact person actually gave suggestions on the nearest hotel to our airbnb to make it easier for us.


After an hour of driving around Seoul and picking up more fellow tour groupies, we finally start heading to towards the DMZ!


Once we pick up the last group of people, it's about a 15-20min drive to our first pitstop - surprisingly near to Seoul. There are military guard houses every few hundred meters and the fences get higher and higher the nearer you get to the DMZ. Our tour guide tells us if you cross the fence that the guards have every right to shoot you on sight.


This is the furthest highway to the North before it has to U-turn back to South Korea. Not included in the tour, but our tour guide decides to bring us to drive through it!

At the checkpoint into the DMZ, there is a long line of buses (Saturday is the worst day to go to the DMZ apparently), but somehow our tour guide is super well connected - he claims he has been to the DMZ 600 times - more than any tour guide in the world - and knows all the managers etc. He proves this by basically getting our bus driver to drive up another path in front of all the other buses - like a VIP entry - and a guard comes on board to check our passports... Then we're in!


First stop - Imjingak Park where our tour guide has to stop at to buy us tickets to get into the tunnels, museum and all. So, so many tourists here. Take a look at the photo above to get an idea of just how many people there were!!!

The boyfriend was not too happy when I first told him I wanted to go to the DMZ, but I think it's pretty safe and seriously touristy - hell there were tons of school kids here.


E-main and I decide to chill at some roadside coffee shop. I get a surprisingly yummy morning cuppa and E-main decides to try a silk worm for fun ahahaha. What a weirdo!!! She has to drink some of my coffee afterwards to get the taste out :'D


A bit more driving, closed off toll booths to North Korea, through winding hills and past active mine fields with only wired gates to separate us and them. There are gutters, to catch the mines if they slip out during a rainy day so it won't blow up the road. Great.


We reach our second pitstop which we spend quite some time at! This seemingly inconspicuous building is the entrance to the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel in which the North Korean soldiers dug in an attempt to invade South Korea during the Korean War. Once again, we saunter past long, long lines of Chinese tourists thanks to our tour guide!

I get separated from my tour group (and E-main!) because I have to go to the toilet - thanks coffee - and everyone goes ahead into the tunnel without claustrophobic me gah. But I figure I can't have come all the way here to NOT go in, so I somehow sneak in with a Chinese tour group, put on a helmet and walk into the tunnel alone.

No pictures are allowed inside, but it  basically looks like a dark and dank tunnel of stone.

At first it's really big and wide, enough to fit at least 4-5 people side by side, then it narrows down till only 2 people can stand side by side. By this point I start feeling seriously uncomfortable, so luckily it's a two way street and I can turn back! I tried to follow another English tour group (the part I was most annoyed about wasn't having to face my fears alone but more of missing information and stories about the tunnel), but their tour guide has a terribly heavy Korean accent which I couldn't catch much of what she was saying (our tour guide was Korean but had a strong American accent).


But yay! Glad I had at least seen most of the cave. I decided the best place to wait would be by our tour bus since everyone will eventually come here, right? However, half an hour passes (which is a really long time to wait when you have no internet or entertainment) and no one comes back. Can the tunnel be that deep? Finally, E-main messages me and tells me they went to the museum, which is in another block directly opposite the tunnel building and yay, I am reunited with the tour group! Also forever then on known as the girl who got lost lolol.


Luckily I didn't miss much on the museum tour, we have a mini history lesson on the Korean war, North Korean leaders etc. and also watch a slightly odd 8 minute propaganda video about the DMZ.


Next up, the Dorasan Observatory, where we get a chance to peek into North Korea! Oh, I do have a picture of our tour guide, hello!


Despite how crowded it looks, we didn't have much trouble fining a spyglass to peer through. It costs 500won (about 50cents) for 2 minutes and we were blessed with clear skies!


You can see how it looks so brown and bare in North Korea, and lush and green on the South Korean side. This is because wood is still the main source of fuel for North Korea, and they cut all the forests down! Also, can you spy the Korean flag in the middle of the two zones? The pole is super high up for us to be able to see it from this distance.