A s part of my unintentional trip around the world, I plan on visiting the Demilitarized Zone and Joint Security Area — the area along the border between North Korea and South Korea — on a tour operated by the United Service Organizations Incorporated and Koridoor.
According to a notice I received via e-mail message, the civilian cash price of the tour will increase from $80.00 to $92.00 as of October 1, 2014; whereas the military cash price will increase from $40.00 to $46.00. I am not in the military nor am I an immediate family member of the military; so I must pay the $92.00. The credit card price of 96,000 South Korean Won for civilians and 48,000 South Korean Won for civilians will remain unchanged.
I cannot save money by paying by cash because I will not be able to give the payment in person by the end of the day on September 30, 2014; so I guess I will have to pay the extra twelve dollars. If you plan on participating in this specific tour and paying in cash — or if you know someone in Seoul who will go to Camp Kim just south of the main train station to pay on your behalf until you can pay that person back — it needs to be done before October 1, 2014.
For a brief period of time, I had thought about visiting North Korea; but I would most likely have to go through China to get there. It was also quite expensive — the total cost of such a trip with transportation would be at least a couple of thousand dollars and at least three days.
Perhaps another day.
Although I have never been to where the Berlin Wall used to stand in Germany; I have visited Cyprus — a country which is divided with a guarded border, similarly to the Koreas. I briefly crossed the border into Northern Cyprus — unrecognized as a nation by other countries with the exception of Turkey. Nicosia is currently the only divided capital city in the world. I intend to post photographs and a trip report of Cyprus in a future article.
I also intend to post photographs of my upcoming visit to South Korea; as well as to the Demilitarized Zone and Joint Security Area — also known as the DMZ and JSA.
