Jeongdongjin, South Korea>, Feb 28, 2009
After staring at North Korea for a few minutes at the DMZ and watching tons of videos about North Koreans and their spies, I wanted to see the DPRK spy sub that was captured in 1996. It’s on display at Jeongdongjin on the east coast of Korea (that’s South Korea… the good one).
There is no direct way to get the Jeongdongjin from Seoul. You have to go to Gangeung or Donghae by long distance bus or train then take a local bus or cab to Jeongdongjin. The train to Gangeung takes about 6.5 hours. By bus it only takes 3 hours.
We showed up at Express Bus Terminal (lines 3 & 7) at 10:00am and bought tickets on the next bus out to Gangeung. It cost less then 20,000won per ticket. Once we got to Gangeung we were told to take bus #109 or #112 (2,300won), but first we needed to take a taxi to bus #112’s bus stop. We should have just taken the taxi all the way to Unification Park (8,000won) since it was very cold. But we were hungry and thought that we would buy some burgers (so American of us!) and eat them while we waited for the bus. (By the way, you can use your Seoul T-money card on the buses in this town.) We ate our burgers in the freezing cold while the local ajimas (old ladies) gathered round us to gawk at us and talk about us in Korean.
It costs 2,000won to enter Unification Park. There are no tour guides, just arrows on the floor and explanations on the walls. There are English translations for most of the information.
Back in 1996 the DPRK sent some spies to South Korea in an orange submarine. (Orange is the new red!) A few spies left the sub and headed for land. When it was time to go back the spies couldn’t swim out far enough because the sea was too rough. They asked that the sub come in further to get them. This is when submarine got stunk on some rocks and was damaged.
At this point going back to the DPRK in their little sub was impossible. They would have to walk back home. There were 11 crew members on board. Before the commander left the sub he shot and killed the crew, so they wouldn’t be tempted to defect, and got his soldiers on land. A taxi driver passing by saw the sub and called the authorities.
In the end, 1 man was captured (He lives in Seoul today). One is still missing (Check under your desks!). And the rest where killed.
I recommend reading the last link. It has some very interesting information about the guy who was captured.
The boat is not as interest to read about as the sub is, but the ship was more fun to play in. It’s like a play ground for adults. Mark and I started to climb on things to take more interesting pictures and in regular Korean fashion, once people saw us climb on stuff they started to climb on stuff too.
In the ship’s gift shop there was a map of the little town we were in and it showed all the cool stuff to do in the area. Most of the cool stuff involved the beach, but there was an art park call Haslla. I may not like art museums, but I LOVE Korean park art!
We left Unification Park and stood at the bus stop. Since buses pass by at a rate of about 1 bus per hour and it was really cold, we decided to take the first bus, taxi, elephant, or sedan chair that passed by. It cost 4,000won each to get into the park.
After wandering around and frolicking amongst various artistic stuff, we wanted to see the huge sandglass downtown. We asked the guard at Haslla to call us a taxi or to at least tell us where to stand to get the bus. He called some guy from the art park and the Haslla shuttle drove us to town free of charge.
We then saw the 1 year sandglass and walked near the beach. (I must go back when it gets warmer.) We ate spicy fish soup at a restaurant by the beach. This is where I ate a fish eyeball for the first time. It was squishy and flavorless, but not terribly gross; just a tiny bit gross.
The people at the restaurant spoke no English and we spoke no Korean. I can go into just about any restaurant in Seoul and order food from a Korean restaurant because I know the names of several dishes that I like. But I’m helpless in a restaurant that serves only fish because I barely know the names of fish in English much less in Korean. (Cham-Chee = Tuna is all I know. As for English I know: tuna, salmon, sardine, big colorful fish, yucky stinky fish…)
We did manage to place an order when Mark whipped out his cellphone’s English to Korean translator. The waitress responded by taking out her cellphone’s Korean to English translator. We had a little conversation going that resulted in a big pot of spicy fish soup with many fish heads.
We took the train back to Gangeung, but not before doing some Korean style drinking outside the GS25 (Korean 7/11). Mark had a beer. I get drunk very easily so I just had some chocolate and iced tea. (I know… how can I live with the people if I can’t drink with the people?) Once again we didn’t take a taxi and I have no good explanation for that because with 2 people the taxi is cheaper than the train.
We took a bus back to Seoul. This involved missing our first bus. Mark yelling at the poor counter girl, the girl calling Mark a liar, and me saving the day with my mad Korean speaking skills.
Ok. It didn’t actually happen that way. We bought our bus tickets back to Seoul on the 9:00pm bus. We had about 10 minutes to kill. We went downstairs where the buses were parked, figured out where the departing buses park and where the bus to Seoul should be parked, saw that the spot was empty, and waiting for the bus to show up. We did use the bathroom, play with blood pressure machine, and complain about how cold it was outside. But every minute we peeked through the glass doors to see if our bus was there. It never showed up. 9:00pm came and went. No bus.
No big deal… we just went up stairs to exchange our tickets for tickets on next bus. We asked for new tickets, since no bus showed up and the woman started to yell, in Korean, at Mark. Mark yelled back at her, in English. I stood there wondering what the hell was going on. Why so much yelling?
There was lady downstairs we were talking to earlier. She spoke English, so I ran downstairs to get her and ask her if she would help us. By the time I got back upstairs Mark had the new tickets in his hand, but he and the counter girl were still yelling at each other. The English speaking Korean told us that the girl said that we were lying and we better not miss the next bus.
The 9:30 bus left at 9:25… Up yours anyone who wasn’t 5 minutes early!