DMZ / JSA Tour – Seoul, Korea

Finally I’m writing about my DMZ tour in Korea. It was a great tour and I’m very glad I went. I took the USO tour and please be careful with their payment method, email me if you want to know more. I loved the part when the US army take over the tour because the English of the Korean guide was really…hard to understand.

Took the subway to the USO office to start the tour, the office is conveniently located, easy to reach with subway

After an hour, we arrived!! First stop was the 3rd tunnel. I’ve read some comments on the net that it’s not worth going and I really don’t understand. I think this is a must visit!

The tunnels were dug by the north Koreans for their attacks to south korea, a total of 4 tunnels were found but they believe there are 20 more that they still haven’t discovered.

It’s too bad they don’t allow photos inside the tunnel. The tunnel is really deep down and actually the north Korean had already dug into the south Korean side. They said the north Korean troops could arrive south korea within an hour thru this tunnel.

One point to note is, there is a monorail we could take to go down and up but because our tour guide didn’t book it, we had to walk. The walk was crazy, I don’t recommend for elderly. Make sure they book the monorail. It’s very steep and it’s the kind of walk that is depressing, it seems never ending and it’s slope all the way, u can’t rest!!!

This was how they dug the tunnel, it’s all manual and everything by hand. I imagine a lot of lives must have sacrificed to build them…l

There are mines everywhere so no visitors could visit the area without a tour bus.

Next stop is the Dorasan Station, the train station that supposedly could take you to north Korea. Of course services of the train has been suspended indefinitely due to the tensions between the 2 koreas

Loved this.

You could buy a ticket to walk around the station

Facing the north side!

Arrived Camp Bonifas, the US army checked our passports and gave us s brief on the history snd current situation. Then we changed to another tour bus to goto the JSA area

Finally!! So excited to see the little blue houses that we always see on tv!!!

Behind the blue houses is north Korea!! You can also see their solider spying on us!!

There were 2 tours from south Korea at the same time and one US solider guide one tour and they were both cute!! Personally I think the one who guided my tour was cuter…….hehehe

Inside the blue house

This line divides north and south

This is the cute US solider I am talking about. What do you think?

Village in north korea!

North Korea!!! I was lucky to be able to take these clear photos of the flag flying nicely. I was told because the flag is so heavy at 500 pounds, it does not always hold.

Bridge of no return, for returning war prisoners, once you cross the bridge, there is no return.

And this is the end of the tour. I was so happy I took this tour and next time I will visit the JSA area from the north korean side to hear their story.

Vietnam – Cu Chi Tunnels – Part 1

Back from Vietnam. Vietnam is indeed a very resourceful country with unlimited supplies of fresh fruit, veggies and most amazingly GREAT SEAFOOD!!!!!

I haven’t uploaded my photos yet but I have to say I was really amazed by the Cu Chi tunnels.

Please look at the shoes they wore during the Vietnam war…..

These are the sandals that the viet cong worn during the war, they were made entirely from tires. Because they were sandals, the soldiers suffered from insect bites. You could see how tough the Vietnamese people were.

I even wore long sleeves clothes and pants to visit the tunnels with insect repellent……can’t imagine their lives during the war, anyway, in contrary, this is what the American soldiers worn

Honestly…this is more like it.
I will write more about the tunnels.
It’s a great experience and I highly recommend to visit if you ever goto Vietnam.

In Saigon

Merry Christmas in advance! I just visited the Cu Chi Tunnels today and am now sitting in a cafe. I must say the tunnels was amazing! It’s really a must visit for people who are interested in war an history. I will write more about this later.

That’s me, I’m writing this on iPhone and I took this picture of myself from my camera.

Flying off to Vietnam tomorrow

Flying off to Ho chi Minh city tomorrow for Christmas, really excited cos I have never been to Vietnam and i am a big fan of Vietnamese food. I will also goto cu chi tunnels from the Vietnam war. I am excited to hear the story about the war from the locals. I could imagine this would be a completely different experience compared to my visit in the DMZ zone in Korea.

I really really really wanna eat cheese fondue

It’s past midnight in hk and I can’t sleep and am watching Indiana jones. I don’t know why but I just really really really wanna have cheese fondue. HELP!!!!

I Ate Fish = Size of a Table!

Finally I am back in Hong Kong!!! Not only Facebook, YouTube are blocked in china, WordPress is also blocked!!

Anyway, I had a fun trip with just eating eating eating and EATING!!!

I ate a fish that is huge like a table and four people have to lift the plate together to serve

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It doesn’t look as big in the photo because we were sitting in a HUGE table that could fit 20 people. There were18 of us but we couldn’t finish the dish

The waitress highly recommended us to try ordering plain noodles to fix with the fish sauce. The noodles were surprisingly very good!

I am determined to lose weight before my vietnam trip this saturday but I really want a beer right now…maybe start diet tomorrow…hahhahaa

No Facebook for the Weekend

Going to shunde in mainland china for the weekend. Have to get up in a few hours……….no Facebook for the weekend since its completely banned in china….

Taiwan Flag in Mainland China

This October I went to shanghai and for the first time, Nanjing. I didn’t have much expectations of Nanjing. Nanjing is a big city in china but it’s not a popular tourist place and the cuisine is not as special like shanghai or Beijing. But I’m really glad I went and I learned more about Chinese history. It’s also beneficial for me to gain more cultural insights in my recent trip to Taiwan.

We visited the Presidential Palace and the Sun Yat-Sen mausoleum. We didn’t have enough time, I would like to visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall and the Taiping kingdom history museum next time.

Anyway, first stop was the Presidential Palace. Nanjing was the capital of China in Ming dynasty and under the rule of Kuomintang. President Sun Yat-sen spent a lot of his childhood in Hawaii and speaks fluent English. The palace is not lavish, it’s rather simple that suits the political situation back then and his personality.

This is Sun’s famous saying and its in all the places related to him, it means “the world is for all”
The outside of the palace is under renovation so I didn’t take a picture.

This is the only place in the People’s Republic of China that you could see the Republic of China (Taiwan) flag.

Beautiful garden

Can u believe this is how we communicate before fax and the Internet?

This person was the head of foreign affairs for the Kuomintang government. He was born in Hong Kong and studied abroad in Japan, Europe and received a Phd in law from Yale Univeristy, eventually getting his license of practice in England. I am amazed by people who studied aboard back then. Traveling to the states from Chins takes over a month by ship!!!! And he went to Yale!!!

This person is in charge of finance. He got his master from Columbia and PHd from Yale. I have no idea how these people did it but I really admire and respect them.

This was a very good Chinese history lesson for me.

Don’t Tell My Mother – Diego Buñuel

I can’t believe I didn’t know about him until now. I really admire him that he’s able to travel all over the world and see many interesting things. If I had knew travel would bed one of my biggest passion earlier I would have devoted myself to a profession that allows me to travel. Well, it’s too late to change profession now but I could still travel in my free time.

I really admire him because he got to see a different view of the places.

Too bad he’s married, he really cute. The fact that he has a Spanish heritage and French himself AND went to the states for sch (he went to northwestern), lets him travel easily in most of the countries in the world!

I really really admire him, if you have not seen his show, here it is, the Pakistan episode of his series is very interesting, it’s really worth seeing

Don’t tell my mother I’m in Pakistan

University of Rochester

I used to hate Rochester when I was studying there. Rochester was boring and always cold, but now I really miss it. U of R is a great school, it shaped who I am today.

University of Rochester.