Coconut Travels to Korea - Part 4 (The DMZ)

 One day we took a tour of the DMZ.  That stands for "demilitarized zone".  A long time ago the Japanese took over Korea.  They were not nice to the Korean people.  They made them speak Japanese and even took most of the food for themselves.  Some of the Korean people learned to grow sweet potatoes and hide them in special storage places in the mountains.  The storage place we saw was like a cool cave.

Finally there was a big war called World War II.  When the Japanese lost the war they had to leave Korea.  The United States and Russia took over.  They were supposed to help the Korean people rebuild their country, but they couldn't agree on how to do it.  After awhile they divided Korea into two parts and the two parts started fighting.  Lots of people died and at the end of the fighting Korea was still divided.  Now the line between the two parts is called the DMZ.

We saw a train that was all shot up in the war and big guns that were used in the fighting.  We also went down into a tunnel that the North Koreans dug to try to get to South Korea.  I don't know if they were trying to attack or just escape.  Lots of people want to escape North Korea because they don't have enough to eat and a lot of people have family on the other side that they are not allowed to visit.

We went to a place where you could see North Korea through telescopes.  There were no trees there.  They told us that people burned the trees because they didn't have any heat.  The visit to the DMZ was very sad.  There were lots of people there who were learning about the war just like we were.  I met a couple of Teddy Bears who had traveled around the world.

The Korean War was never officially over.  People on both sides of the DMA are still afraid the war will start again.  Later in our trip we went to the beach at Sokcho.  Sokcho is not too far from North Korea.  Every day the army patrolled the beach to make sure it was safe.  Sometimes they even flew helicopters over the beach.  One day we saw 14 tanks drive down the street in front of our hotel.

People used to go from Sokcho to a resort in North Korea where there is a very tall and very famous mountain called Gumgang San, but now North and South Korea are not too friendly with each other and they don't let people from the south go to the resort any more.

Grandma says that lots of families got separated from the war and never saw each other again.  I would be very sad if I could never see my family again.