May 4, 2010 - The Demilitarised Zone - DMZ

The DMZee: Where North Meets South ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 04 May 2010 Today is my one day out of Seoul, a day trip to the DMZ (and it is always, seemingly, pronounced DM Zee; these Americans!). nb Although the map point shows Kaesong, that is in N Korea and I didn't go there but it is the nearest place I could find in the area. I'm using a company called USO United Services Organisation which is in the US army base Camp Kim, smack bang...

May 31, 2006 - Your Nose is So Big

After six bumpy hours on the bus from Dandong, we arrive in the small town of Ji'an. In the lobby of a guesthouse, the 50-something proprietor goes momentarily wide-eyed when I tromp in and ask in my awkward Mandarin whether she has a room available. But she quickly recovers and calls for her assistant to show me around. This younger woman can't stop looking at me as she takes me through the simple guest rooms. She finally bursts out, "Your face is so different than mine!" Touching her own cheek, she says, "Your skin is so white." As...

May 29, 2006 - More Glimpses of North Korea

Our boat cruises right up to the North Korean shore, where children in shorts and ragged T-shirts are splashing in the Yalu River. We speed along the shoreline, past some idle construction cranes, rusty tugboats, and an unmoving Ferris wheel. Then just like that, we're zipping back to the Dandong side, to the skyscrapers, the bustling riverfront promenade lined with tourists, and the never-idle construction sites. We wander out to the end of the "broken bridge" that stops abruptly mid-river, destroyed by the U.S. during the Korean War. Like...

Oct 16, 2005 - Krackling Korea

Copyright 2005 David Rich 1700 Words jdavidrich@yahoo.com K R A C K L I N G K O R E A Korea crackled from my first day there. I fortuitously arrived on the annual extravaganza of Chusok (also Chu Suk), the annual mid-September Thanksgiving/harvest festival giving Koreans an excuse to pig out, dress up, visit relatives and frolic around their national shrines. The foremost fiesta exploded at the Gyeongbokgung World Heritage Palace in Seoul. I stumbled on it crammed with thousands of Korean kids in colorful costume, the cutest little...