We set out for Munsan Station at 9am (from Hongik Station), the journey took about an hour to reach the end of the Gyeongui line.

Imjingak

From there we caught a local bus #58 (1200KRW) to Imangik which is the closest town to the border, it is 54 kilometers,from the capital of South Korea … Imjingak lies near the Imjin River and is the last village before the well-known area called the DMZ or in other words the ‘demilitarised zone’. The place was quite deserted. We walked around looking at art installations, then checked out the various displays explaining the heartache that many Koreans felt when their beloved country was split in two North and South Korea. We saw the Peace Bell, Freedom Bridge (which takes its name from the return on 12 733 POW in 1953, the first exchange of prisoners since the signing of the armistice that ended the Korean War. It holds tremendous symbolic importance of the ‘return to freedom’), locomotive (which was derailed in the DMZ during the Korean War) and lots of ribbon tributes to loved ones in the hope that one day they'll be reunited. The other side was confronting with barbed wire fencing stretching as far as you can see and guard stations positioned along the perimeter. From the observation deck we used telescopes to look into North Korea. There are usually DMZ Tours, but they unfortunately were not running today.

After looking around for about 1.5 hours we caught the bus then metro back to Gangnam Station. There was supposed to be ‘Gangnam Style’ the song playing on a loop at exit 5, but alas not today. We continued on to Samsung Dlight, a free interactive showcase of everything Samsung, where we meet Dad. We particularly enjoyed the interactive experiences such as the roller coaster and falling off a building.

Later we went out for dinner at a Korean BBQ/Hot Pot Buffet in Hongdae to finish up our time in Seoul.