A missed chance of visiting the North Korean border or DMZ

With all the tension surmounting between North Korea and the rest of the world—Kim Jong Un’s threats of an impending nuclear war, I thought its best that I post an entry about our missed chance of visiting the North Korean Border or DMZ, short for Demilitarised Zone, the world’s last cold war frontier.

Trivia: Did you know that Kim Jung Un, North Korea’s leader was schooled in Europe? In a private school in Switzerland they say, although he was supposed to go by another name. Of course this has never been confirmed by North Korean authorities.

Demilitarised Zone (DMZ)

The North Korean Border or Demilitarised Zone (DMZ).

Kim Jong-un (or Kim Jong Un). All pictures above were taken from: ABCNews.com, Boston.com, NYTimes.com, Time.com, Yahoo.com

Nevertheless, in October last year (2012), Dutchman and I visited South Korea. We stayed in the country for 5 days arriving on a Friday noon. A major objective in this trip was to visit the North Korean border. A visit to the border at Panmunjom village can only be made possible through an official guided tour.

So when we arrived Friday in Seoul, we spent the day getting our bearings around the radius of our new and temporary neighbourhood—Bukchon Hanok Village, which is located in the historical centre of the city.

Saturday came and it was raining cats and dogs so we decided to sleep in succumbing to jetlag whilst enjoying our traditional Hanok house accommodation. In the afternoon, we went out searching for a travel agency that offers the North Korean border tour.

Unfortunately, in South Korea it is quite rare to find travel agencies on the city streets. I did not expect this as I thought that tourism in Seoul must have picked up by now and that it would be quite easy to locate a travel agent in the historical centre. Sadly, this was not the case and it was a hard lesson learned!

Fact: Dutchman and I grew impatient as we did the hand and facial expression movements, our means of communication with a woman manning the tourist information centre in Bukchon Hanok Village. She barely spoke English but she wanted to help, however, with the language barrier the 3 of us looked like we are in a silly pantomime act. But she kept saying—Lotte Hotel.

Now, we do not want to believe that all travel agencies are located in just one location, at Lotte Hotel? Do we?

Anyway, we took her word and we went to Lotte Hotel in Myeong-dong.

Lotte Hotel where the travel agencies are located

We saw this beside the hotel, at the Lotte department store and we wondered what the chaos and queueing was all about? The K-Pop stars are very popular in South Korea and in Asia.

I had to go to the toilet of the hotel. Toilets in South Korea (it is worse in Japan) are super high-tech. The buttons are quite intimidating.

Upon arriving at the hotel, we asked around in the lobby and we were told that it is located upstairs—I cannot remember the number of the floor. But when we stepped out of the elevator on the said floor, we were greeted with an office-looking corridor. Doors of travel agencies one after the other flanked the corridor. The woman at the Bukchon Hanok Village Tourist Office is correct. They are all here.

The travel agencies offer different types of North Korean border tours, however, they do not have a tour schedule for Sunday and Monday, only from Tuesdays to Saturdays. So we reserved for seats on the Tuesday tour. It is a whole day tour coming back to Seoul city centre between 17:00-18:00.

Booked but…

Booked the DMZ-Panmunjom Tour and Dutchman and I were quite happy!

We were scheduled to leave for Cebu, Philippines on Tuesday night. We really believed that our flight was at 23:30 so that means we have enough time for the ride to the airport after the tour. However, it turned out that our flight was actually at 19:30!!! Oh no! How could we have missed this?

There is just no way for us to attend the tour and be at the airport at least an hour before departure. Seoul city centre to Incheon International Airport is about an hour.

With a heavy heart, we sent an email to the travel agency cancelling our booking, last minute, on a late Monday night. The only good thing that came out from this event is that we did not pay upfront.

So that my friends is the reason why we missed this once in a lifetime chance. We still look back at it with bitter and heavy hearts. *sigh*

Nevertheless, I hope this tension will not escalate into a full-blown war???

Travel Period: October 2012
Destination: South Korea / North Korea

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