DMZ Tour from the South Korea Side: From the South Side to the North Side and Back Again

DMZ Trip Report Series:
DMZ Tour from the South Korea Side: Intro and Booking
DMZ Tour from the South Korea Side: From the South Side to the North Side and Back Again
DMZ Tour from the South Korea Side: The Lonesome Train Station
DMZ Tour from the South Korea Side: Lunch! And After Lunch

The only DMZ tour time offered for my day in Seoul was at 7:30am. Brutal! That influenced my hotel choice. I wanted to stay at the Courtyard Seoul Times Square (excellent hotel) but that was too far. So I picked the closest American chain hotel to Camp Kim - Millennium Seoul Hilton. But even though it was close, it was still a 20 min walk and I had to arrive at 7am for the tour check-in so I opted to take a taxi. (It was also 5 min by metro but adding the time it would take for me to walk over to the metro station and my penchant for lateness, the taxi was the best choice.)

 After a successful tour check-in, I was pretty pumped. Here was the schedule for the day:

07:30 : Departure from Camp Kim USO
09:00 : After an informative video at Camp Bonifas and a presentation by a member of the U.S. military 20 Minute Briefing at JSA Visitor Center And then tour to the JSA area (Freedom house, Conference room, Bridge of no return and point of Ax murder)
11:20 : DMZ Theater, The Third infiltration Tunnel,
13:00 : Lunch at the Korean Restaurant during DMZ tour.
13:40 : Dora observatory and Dorasan Station
14:00 : Departure to Camp Kim USO
15:30 : Arrive at Camp Kim USO

Our chariot

We actually didn't follow the schedule for the most part but you get the idea. It is a packed day.
We left promptly at 7:30am and took a nice, long bus ride to the Joint Security Area (JSA) Visitor Center. We were accompanied by two KoriDoor guides who, after a short intro, let us sleep the rest of the ride. Once we arrived at Camp Bonifas and checked in, we were introduced to Sergeant Fulford, who checked our passports. Then he stayed on the bus and was our tour guide for the rest of our time at the JSA! He was an awesome tour guide too - funny and outgoing.

We started with a briefing at the visitor center that gave us a good background of the DMZ, JSA, and the other places we would be visiting during the tour. Then we took another bus to the JSA. We entered the Freedom House, which was meant to be an event building on the South Korea side of the JSA. North Korea has a similar building directly facing it but their building is a little taller. It seems North Korea liked to build things a wee bit little taller than South Korea in the DMZ area. The Sergeant had us stand on the back steps of the Freedom House in a row to take pictures. We were told we could not take pictures of the Freedom House; only pictures of the buildings on the DMZ and North Korea could be taken. Ummmm... sketchy. There were many times we were told on the tour that we could not take pictures of the buildings/landmarks on the South Korea side and surprisingly (to me), there was even a propaganda video. Hmmm...

I'm not gonna lie. This is a freaky scene to stand behind and observe. These soldiers stand for hours like that. They are in the Ju Jitsu stance to look menacing.

Sergeant Fulford informed us that they nicknamed the DPRK guard, Bob. Oy.

 

'You touch. You die.' -All that I can think of when I see one of these soldiers.

I'm in North Korea! The center of the table (lengthwise) is on the DMZ line that divides North and South Korea.

Me with Sergeant Fulford and DMZ guard. One of those guards was in the Freedom House and I totally thought he was a wax figure. In my defense, there *actually* was a wax figure at the Visitor Center. But yeah, good thing I didn't poke the guy I thought was a wax figure.

After our time in the conference room, we drove around the area and saw some of the historical sites nearby. We stopped to view the North Korean landscape and got a glimpse of the fake village, Kijong-dong. What makes it fake? No one lives there. Click here to read more.