Korea 2011 - Day 6 (USO DMZ/JSA Tour, Nandaemun & Myeongdong)

We would be going to the DMZ/JSA & 3rd Tunnel Tour organized by USO in the morning . We woke up early to have breakfast. The good thing about the guest house is that it has a pantry with bread and cup noodles provided. We had a quick breakfast at the pantry.

 

After our breakfast, we made our way to USO where we had to sign in for the tour. USO is actually located in a military camp called Camp Kim.

 

For the tour, we were first brought to the JSA visitor center. After the briefing by a US soldier, we went to the JSA area (Freedom House, Conference room and Bridge of No Return). We were not allowed to take any pictures of the Freedom House.

Briefing by US soldier.

Conference Room.

 

 

View from Freedom House.

 

  

North Korean soldier at Panmungak (North Korean building).

  

South Korean Soldier.

Bridge of No Return.

After that, we went to the Third Infiltration Tunnel and Dora Observatory.

Third Infiltration Tunnel.

 

 

Dora Observatory.

 

 

After having lunch at Gyeongui Highway Transit Office, we went to Dorasan Station which was our last stop of the tour. Dorason Station is a railroad station situated on the Gyeongui Line, which once connected North and South Korea. Currently, the station is completely shut to all train travel, and that the station is only open for tourists.

Lunch at Gyeongui Highway Transit Office.

  

Checkpoint to North Korea.

Dorasan Station.

 

 

 

 

 

After the tour, we traveled to Nandaemun Market.

At Nandaemun, we passed by a stall selling buns. I remembered reading about a famous stall selling buns in Nandaemun and assumed this was the famous stall because of the signs and pictures of the stall appearing on TV, so we bought a few buns to try.

 

As we were about to leave Nandaemun, we spotted another stall selling buns but with a long queue. This is bad. This must be the famous stall and we bought the buns from the wrong stall... We knew that we would not be going back to Nandaemun again in this trip, so we decided to join the long queue to buy a few buns to try.

 

After that, we went back to our guest house for a rest and to eat our buns. The buns bought from the famous stall did taste better.

In the evening, we went to Myeongdong where we had a great dinner at Gogung.

After dinner, we spent the rest of our evening walking around Myeongdong and doing some shopping.

Our day ended with a visit to Mister Donut to get our breakfast for the next day.