{"id":6260,"date":"2014-09-30T07:06:39","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T14:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/wanderlusty\/?p=6260"},"modified":"2014-09-30T07:06:39","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T14:06:39","slug":"instawalk-tour-dmz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/wanderlusty\/2014\/09\/instawalk-tour-dmz\/","title":{"rendered":"Instawalk: A Tour of the DMZ"},"content":{"rendered":"

if you visit Seoul and don’t fit in a day tour of the DMZ<\/a>, shame on you. IMHO it’s well worth your time to actually\u00a0see<\/em> recent (and ongoing) history and\u00a0step foot<\/em> into North Korea without having to do one of those wacky tours to the actual country. plus, it’s really intense with those soldiers just staring each other (and you) down! oh, and all the rules you have to follow about where you can stand, what you can do with and without a camera — ack! all around an unforgettable experience.<\/p>\n

\"Panorama<\/a>

Panorama of North Korea from Dora Observatory.<\/p><\/div>\n

sidebar: tours<\/strong> i’ve heard that the tours given by the USO are the best, and they certainly are the cheapest that i’ve seen (i think around $80), but you do need to book early<\/a> because they go quickly. i was too late and decided to go with Panmunjom Travel Center<\/a>\u00a0($120 for a full-day tour). we had a great — if overly enthusiastic — tour guide and i did learn a lot, so i think they should be a pretty safe choice. plus, the bus was full, so that’s a good sign.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

regardless of which company you choose, tours to this area are broken up into two parts: the Panmunjom<\/strong> part\u00a0and the DMZ<\/strong> part. Panmunjom is the Joint Security Area<\/a> (JSA), where you can see (and walk over) the border and the soldiers in that very famous setting. the DMZ tour is pretty much everything else surrounding the JSA in the DMZ, including the Third Tunnel<\/a> and Dora Observatory<\/a>. unless you’re really short on time or money, you might as well do a combined tour that does both (with lunch in between).\u00a0our tour also included a chance to talk to a North Korean defector — it’s really something to actually meet someone who defected via China and Southeast Asia and has only been living in South Korea for less than two years.<\/p>\n

i couldn’t decide between doing a Storify<\/a>\u00a0or a regular Instawalk post, so i’m going to combine tweets and Instagram shots, i think. i hope it’s not too disjointed!<\/p>\n

\n

Oh my. This is our tour bus to the DMZ. Lol. #paiting<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/fwI89cU4Yn<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jonathan Khoo (@jonk) September 29, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n