Today me and my wife took a trip to the border between North and South Korea.
(Click photos for full size) - I've noticed the first few don't work but the bottom ones do.
We took the new regular passenger service to Munsan which opened at the end of last year. operates every hour and is now integrated into the rest of Seoul's subway network.
The trip took about an hour and it was nice to travel up a line I had never been on before. When we arrived we battled in line for a ticket to catch the special shuttle train which travels to the few final stations on the line. Originally we had planned to simply go to the park at Imjin River but on seeing how cheap tours of the DMZ were, we couldn't resist. So we got back on the train.
Before boarding we were frisked and sent under a metal detector. Quite bizarre before boarding a very old commuter train.
It started to sink in that we were quite close to the border when we started seeing road signs for Pyeongyang. We crossed the Imjin river which still has the remains of the original bridge, destroyed in the war. It's the first real damage from the war that I've seen which has been preserved and it felt quite eerie.
We reached Dorasan Station, the final stop on the line before it goes into North Korea. We were now in a restricted area, off limits to the public. (Not the station itself, but outside the station.)
Looking toward the border.
The station looks ridiculously new and unused. Everything is set up so once relations between the two countries improve, things can get moving right away. Trains were crossing the border last year when relations were better but I don't think they would be at the moment.
The next stop in obviously not Pyeongyang but I guess it is a symbol of how close the capital is to here, that being 205km away.
Inside the station, the gate which takes you underground to the other side of the tracks for North bound trains.
The hanging signs above shows the real next station is Gaeseong.
The building is huge and I was very nervous taking this photo, not knowing what was okay and what was off limits. (Photoshop did something weird when I took myself out of the photo.)
Oh and here's a picture of North Korea from the mountain. Pity it was such a hazy day :(
