DMZ and Splashing Around!

Yesterday we left Chuncheon, where we've been living throughout our orientation, which is about 2 hours from Seoul. We moved our stuff onto buses and drove to Seoul, where we checked into yet another dormitory, this time at Yonsei University, which is a very well-known University here in Korea. This morning we woke up and boarded buses for an all day tour of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). Basically the DMZ is a neutral zone between North Korea and South Korea that is controlled by the military from both sides and the U.S. Today we found out that there is one village of civilians who live within the borders of the DMZ; it is a town called Freedom Village. The villagers who live there are families who lived there before the Korean War. They farm rice and make approximately $84,000 a year tax free. They are very wealthy, but they have a strict curfew (they must be in their homes by dawn and spend the night in their village 240 nights out of the year to prove they are a resident.) It is the military's job to protect this village and the people who live there, as well as keep an eye on North Korea. We asked what the villagers spend all their money on and the response from our Army guide was: "They drive tractors by day and BMWs by night." The DMZ was impressive, but also a little tense; we had sign a waiver to our safety, were not allowed to point or wave at any of the North Korea soldiers, or even take pictures in the direction of North Korea. At the DMZ there was a special unit of South Korean soldiers that could be deployed within 60-90 seconds, (their record was 38 seconds.) As our Army tour guide pointed out to us: "Ya'll can't even brush your teeth in 38 seconds." As you can tell it was a very interesting tour and I can now say that I have seen North Korea. Some of the interesting differences were the fact that their hills were treeless, in large part because they have abused their land to the extent that it looked quite barren despite the rolling hills and mountains. We also saw Propaganda City just across the border, which is the town that was built to make it look like North Korea was doing well. It had modern high rise buildings and the world's largest flagpole flying a North Korean flag. After the tour we headed to the U.S. Ambassador's residence where we had a pool party/American BBQ! It was so great; we played marco polo, practiced our synchronized swimming, and played other games after an refreshingly American meal that included salsa, macaroni and cheese, fruit and veggie trays, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, Doritos, and chocolate chip cookies! Tomorrow we meet our school principals and co-teachers and head to our respective placements. As I mentioned before, my placement is in Jeju City on Jeju Island and I will fly down there tomorrow. I haven't posted pictures of teh pool party or the DMZ yet, because I'm not on my computer, but I definitely will as soon as I get a chance; there are some very interesting ones!