Paju

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On September 18, 2024, the day after the long trip up from Busan, I took a tour bus from Seoul to Paju, along the border with North Korea. The first stop was Majangho Lake, a reservoir in the hills with a suspension bridge across it, and the second was the Odusan Unification Observatory, which looks across the river into North Korea. Around midday, we stopped at Imjingak. In the afternoon, we crossed into the Civilian Control Zone, went into the Third Tunnel, which North Korea dug under the border, and ended at the Dora Observatory.
Photos from Paju
3 A wide plaza of red brick in front of the Odusan Unification Observatory, a stone building with a curved canopy over its entrance and two round towers on the roof, where visitors look out from the top. Large white letters on the plaza spell the name in Korean, with “Odusan Unification Tower” beneath, and visitors walk past pots of flowers under a partly cloudy sky.
The Odusan Unification Observatory.
The view from the Odusan Unification Observatory across the wide, calm water below, where the Han and Imjin rivers meet. On the far shore, in North Korea, a wooded strip of land edges flat fields, rows of low buildings sit in small villages, and layers of hazy hills rise behind them under a pale sky.
Looking across the water into North Korea from Odusan.
A two-story observation building at the Dora Observatory, painted in green, yellow, and brown camouflage, with stairs rising to its entrance. A banner across the top reads 분단의 끝 통일의 시작, with the English “End of Separation, Beginning of Unification” and Chinese and Japanese versions beside a South Korean flag. A stone at the left is carved with the observatory’s name, a tour bus is parked at the edge of the wide lot, and the pavement at the right is marked for military vehicles, under a cloudy afternoon sky.
The Dora Observatory, inside the Civilian Control Zone.
