The North, the art and the strange

Sunday, once again, a relaxing day in the Collard household. and it seems to be becoming routine that some or all of the DOCS girls go out and enjoy some part of Seoul Sunday late-morning or early-afternoon as the boys do whatever boys do when unsupervised (which for Taylor is gaming with his friends back home, as Sunday AM for us is Saturday PM for the US, and prime gaming time.)

This last past weekend (March 29th) the ladies visited Paju, which is the closest you can get to North Korea (excluding the DMZ which we will do in a couple months once the tour groups begin and it is warmer). I could tell you about how I could see the North Korean soldiers peering back at me from their base, their guns over their shoulders, or the homes and hotels in the 'city' on the other side which are all just for show, as no one lives there, or about the fields where the North often puts it's 'happiest workers' so that when we see them, we see happy people. I don't know how they expect us to get the vibe of 'happiness' from field slaves whose facial expressions we are much too far away from to see, even with binoculars, but whats one, small logical oversight for an entire country, right?

Instead of telling you all of the above though, I will just show it, starting with lunch, per usual:

But first, a neat church I saw, unfortunately we were near Sinchon and much too far for me to trek every Sunday morning for service :( And up next...the Loving Hutt round two, but not the buffet one, but a order-and-sit-down variety.

 My vegetarian noodles, which were quite spicy, but very good.

 A little fun with Caroline and the big red mirror of Sinchon :)

And some of the city after the 40 minute subway ride, before the 40 minute bus ride, that would take us to Paju :)

 And me enjoying sunshine because this is Korea, and selcas are a necessary and intregal part of life.

And a high-tech toilet that disturbed me greatly...
And finally, the main event!! Paju and 'the North'!

Google maps screen shots from my phone, so you know its real :P

My first glimpse of the North, and a semi-pained, fear-face :S

"Our side" (ahem, the South) where if you look real close, you can see the men playing soccer in the courtyard...apparently there was no threat from the North that afternoon (whew)

The observatory on the left, and the lovely ladies (Caroline and Emma) on the right.

And the closest you (or I) will ever get to the North (hopefully!) The final picture shows their lookout on their side of the river, where I saw two men patrolling, the gun of one can juuust be made out on the middle tier if you squint one eye and close the other and then close the other and just believe me :) I was quite impressed that my phone could take a picture through a set of binoculars, though the quality looks about as you would expect via these means.

The rest of the observatory served as a reunification museum and exhibit, telling of the reasons the South and North should become one, the good things that have happened to other areas of the world after reunification, and a general history of the war and the separation that now exists. In addition, there was an area dedicated to the possibilities of transportation if the North and South decide to hug and make up, so to speak. Of course I'm talking about a high-speed train that could go from Paris to Seoul...how impressive would that be!?

After we took more pictures than were probably necessary (I culled this post back quite far after it wouldn't post the first few times) we went to Heyri Art Village for food, more food, desserts and more food, and to look at the cute buildings, fun art and overall unique area that seems much more than a mere 40 minutes from the bustle of Seoul. I will definitely have to return to Heyri at some point with Taylor.

A super neat cafe we had cakes and coffees at called 'Cafe Rose' in Heyri. I love the themes here! It's all so well put together! And the desserts were quite nice too; I had an almost-oreo-like cheese cake and cafe mocha, Emma had a sweet potato cake and Caroline had pancakes, which apparently are desserts, not breakfast foods, in the UK, regardless, it was a delicious 'meal' ;)

Some of the neat walkways and structures in the park that seems to weave around Heyri

 One of the coolest buildings I've seen to date!

Some creepy knock-off figures...some of the 'art' in the art village was quite, um...strange...

All in all I had way too much fun being silly around some of the collections, but the entire area is scattered with unique buildings and beautiful architecture, with most of the buildings housing exhibits, but we just walked around and enjoyed the nice day. So finally, you are up to date with last weekend :) just in time for me to share this weekends shenanigans! But that will have to wait for tomorrow, as it is late and I need my beauty sleep.

All of my love,

Tea