Seoul and Surrounds on a Beautiful Day!

We had a hard rain in the predawn hours this morning, watching it out the window, I was not sure we would have much of a tour of Seoul today. WRONG! The weather cleared after sunup and we were treated to the nicest weather day of our whole trip!

We met our guide Bill, who spent 11 years in Chicago as a student and then an interpreter before returning a couple of years ago to his native land. He capped off a truly remarkable group of folks that acted as our guides on this trip around the world. Each and every one of them was at least terrific, a remarkable record! We told Bill that we were all very interested in the DMZ and the areas where the Korean War ( I can't ever call it a 'Conflict' when so many died here) He took us up to an area called the Reunification Observation Site, a large building on a bluff that overlooks the Yalau River, the DMZ and North Korea beyond. It is pictured below

Here is Bill, who was a great source of information and good English! Yes Sandy, there are ton's of cool cars here, I am bringing back quite a few pictures of them. This is an Audi R8, the first one I've seen in real life. It screamed by us and I was immediately certain we wouldn't be getting any pictures of the front of the machine for this collection!

Below you can see an incredible shopping "mall", 11 levels of stores of everything from Tiffany's to the GAP. Behind it, you can see our hotel, the JW Marriott, whose lobby was connected to the Mall. That is a Jumbotron TV build into the side of the store tht looks like the black square on the right. The North Korean mountains beyond the DMZ and the Yalau River. Beautiful visibility and Bill says one of the best days he's ever seen up here! One of the dozens of guard towers that were along the highway, which followed the river. The razor wire fence was lighted and stretched for over 30 miles we saw without a break! About every 3rd tower had soldiers with guns in them. The guide says that most of them are manned in the nights, when both the good guys and the bad guys can be shot at trying to gain their freedom or come South to spy..... Thought this sign came at the right time on the last of our guided city tours. There will be far more uplinked to the blog, but most of those pictures will have to wait for us to return home to where I can download the little Sony Camera and Mercer can get to a functioning computer with his camera's software in it. So more later. Bob