It is Saturday and The Kim Family invited to take us on a tour which turned out to be a full day driving and sight seeing. Our Destination was The Peace Park and the DMZ. Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. The trip was very informative as we learned about the history of the conflict and how the rest of the Western World including Canada were involved. It is somewhat ironic that we viewed the Peace Park and The DMZ all in one day. The Peace Dam is located in the Peace Park. This dam was built some 30 years ago I understood in response to a North Korean threat to blow up one of their dams so that much of South Korea would be destroyed. The dam is a huge 265 meter high block of concrete closing off the valley between two mountain ranges. At the Peace Park you will find many exhibits of other people involved. Folks who hold Nobel Peace Prizes are featured at the park. The Peace Bell is some 8 feet high and 1 foot thick. It is made entirely with melted down bullets from around the world. Our own Gordon Janzen who works with MC Canada had a shell from Israel in his possession and he donated it along with a letter explaining where it came from. The Bullet and Letter are on display.

 The Han River that runs from NK through much of Northern SK and ends in the Ocean near Seoul.

 Miles of tunnels help so that we did not need to travel up and down and around every mountain. The longest tunnel we passed through is 5 KM.

 

 A city along the way to the Peace Park

 Rice being dried along the road way. Some Cars were driving over the grain because there was no other place to drive.

 We stopped to see Kyong Jung's Mother and his sister and her husband

 These are tank blocks. Each block is loaded with a bag of dynamite that can be set off dropping the big concrete blocks onto the road to spot all traffic including tanks that might be a threat

 An observation deck along the river

 This is the Peace Dam

 265 Meters high and very little water being held back.

 Only these small drainage channels allow the water to freely in small amounts.

 The Peace Bell made from bullets.

 For a small donation you can ring the bell.

 Kyong Jung shaking hands with Gorbachev's hand sticking out of the picture. Tutu's picture in the for front.

 

 This is the bullet that Gordon Janzen donated to the Peace Park

 This is the registration Office where we had to get permission to enter the DMZ area. At the next checkpoint we had to show passports and were inspected by the military. Pictures of soldiers not permitted.

 Weapons on Display at the Registration Office

 Rice field ready for harvest.

 The Punch Bowl is the area looking up to the DMZ. It is a very fertile bowl like piece of land siting within 5 Km of NK.

 The road was very crooked. one time it said 99 curves in the next fourteen KMs

 The steepest grade we saw was 18%. The brakes on the van started to smell hot.

 This is the observation Deck at the DMZ. SK is on the left side of the picture and NK is in the right.

 We stopped at a Burger Joint along the ride home.

 Back to Chuncheon. where we did a little shopping before we headed back to Gotan-ri.



On Friday Jerry slipped and twisted his  ankle and Branden is still having headaches so we both had a treatment from Kyong Jung's Brother a chiropractor who drove out from Seoul. It helped my leg and we hope the same for Branden.