Went to North Korea this weekend!!







I only went maybe 5 meters into the country but I still stood there :D. It would seem that I went at the right time with regards to what happened yesterday. I don't quite understand what happened there but I think it's just a mixture of North Korean excitement for blood and the fact that they don't have much to loose.



Talking of North Korean excitement for blood, we went to one spot on the DMZ (De-militarized Zone) where 3 Americans tried to prune a tree which was blocking thier view of a guard tower. 20 North Korean soldiers turned up and told them to stop, but they didn't, so the North Koreans murdered them with axes.















In retaliation, the Americans sent a whole division with helicopters, B-52 bombers and artillery support the next day and chopped the whole tree down and futher more, pruned every tree in the area. God bless the American mentality eh?



On Sunday we went to the Korean War Memorial which was O.U.T.S.T.A.N.D.I.N.G! I could not believe how much information and art work there was there. The Korean War was huge and so it's representation as a museum is something not to be taken lightly.


QUICK HISTORY LESSON:



In 1945 The Japanese do thier unconditional surrender to the allies and have to withdraw from all the countries that they have colonised... including the Korean Peninsula.



Korea is SUPER happy because they are free again HOWEVER the Soviets move in from the North, whilst the Americans land in the South to help clear out all the Japs. Sort of the same story as Berlin, but no Japs, just Germans. But they didn't really clear them out. So not the same story, but similar.

















The country became divided under America and the USSR and by 1949 both occupying forces had withdrawn from the country. On June 25th 1950 the North invaded and so started the Korean War.


On the island of Jeju 1 in every 5 people was killed and half the villages burned down. There was a rebellion here and there is a cave where they found hundreds of bodies where people were running away from the 'Communists' and they all hid in the cave but there was too many of them and many died from suffocation and being crushed and the ones at the front were killed by the Communists. At least I think it was that way around. You can visit the cave so maybe I'll go and get me history right for ya.



So the metal dudes are structures outside the museum; for the first thing you see when you walk into that place it really does set a tone.



The pictures with the blue buildings are the North Korea - South Korea border. The blue buildings are South Korean and the grey buildings are North Korean. Half the building is in the South and half is in the North so North troops can walk in and out of the South Korean buildings and vice versa with the South Korean troops in the North's buildings.


So when George Bush visited one of these buildings, two North Korean troops enetered the building, took down two American flags and one wiped his boot with the American flag and the other blew his nose on the flag.... all infront of George Bush. Also the chap with the binoculars is a North Korean soldier.




The picture of me and the ROK soldier is in the half of the South Korean building which is in North Korea. This is the building that the flag incident happened in. Also the ROK soldier's give you a pretty hard thump if you get too close to them.... not personal experience but I saw it happen to two people in the room. Haha they sh*t themselves when it happened.

Then there are some pictures of me and my mates from the American Army and the Korean army. Top chaps. Top.

AND THEN there is this picture of a bridge. This bridge is also on the border; it is called 'The Bridge of No Return'. So called because at the unofficial end of the Korean War, I think something like 80,000 North Korean POW's and maybe 50,000 South Korean POW's had the choice of living in either the North or the South. The only deal was that once they crossed the bridge, they could never return.