DMZ

Every country has an icon, something quintessential to the country that anyone with a passing familiarity to the country will know about. Australia has kangaroos and the Sydney Opera House. America has the Statue of Liberty and the White House. Italy has the Colosseum, Greece the Parthenon, Japan Mt Fuji. South Korea (and North Korea) have the DMZ. The Demilitarized Zone. The 4 kilometre strip of land that separates North and South Korea that was declared after the stalemate that became the Korean War and intensely guarded ever since.

The weekend before last I went on a tour of the DMZ with the guys from work (we invited the girls but they didn't want to go). The tour met in downtown Seoul early Saturday morning, from where we bussed up to the DMZ which was about 90 minutes away. We then swapped bus to a US Army bus, which took us for a briefing by a very gung-ho and stereotypical soldier on the history of the Joint Security Area, the little area where there are a bunch of buildings nominally there for the purpose of talks, if only the North Koreans would show up. After listening to the briefing and signing a waiver, we took the Army bus into the JSA. Both the North and South have buildings there, and soldiers. We only got to go inside two of the buildings, one of which was the main meeting room. This building is split in the middle by the border, so while inside we were able to technically enter North Korea, although my stay lasted about a minute.

After seeing the main section of the JSA, we were taken on a tour of the places that were involved in the Axe Murder Incident of 1976, which led to Operation Paul Bunyan, the most expensive tree cutting ever (the back up plan to take the tree down if things went really bad was for a battleship on the east coast to bombard the location).

After the JSA we went to Dorasan observatory, a lookout on a mountain near the border. The view wasn't that great, and photos even worse because you weren't allowed to take photos at the edge of the observatory, but had to stand behind some yellow lines about two or three metres back. The fog didn't help either, nor did being kicked out of the auditorium there so some big wig could have a private look at the border.

The final part of the tour was a visit to Infiltration Tunnel 3, one of four known tunnels dug by the North Koreans into the south. Before entering the tunnel, we watched a bizarre film on the DMZ, which started out a bit grim but factual, and then went on a crazy overly optimistic dream about the future of the DMZ. The tunnel itself was low (I had to crouch most of the time, and am glad I got a hardhat), cool and damp. The entrance was pretty steep (about 11 degrees I think) which was OK going down but a good bit of exercise going back up. The tunnel just sort of stops at the end where the South Koreans have put up barricades, and apparently the North Koreans have collapsed the tunnel on their side as well. The tunnel also had a thin layer of coal painted on the sides, as one of the claims the North has made about the tunnel is that it was a coal mine that went a little too far. They said that had it been used, the North expected to get 30,000 men an hour through the tunnel. Presumably the North Koreans aren't as tall as me.

Now for some photos.

Me next to one of the ROK soldiers in the meeting room in the JSA. We were told not to touch them or we'd be "touched" back.

The main building on the North Korean side. There was one soldier visible, but we were told there were more inside the building take our photos.

Where the tree that led up to the Axe Murder Incident used to be.

The badge I had to wear. Unfortunately, we couldn't keep it.

The blue JSA bus

Chris at Dorasan Observatory. The yellow line is where we could take photos from.

Going down the tunnel. The south Koreans have made the entrance part nice and neat, but the later section (the flat bit) is a lot lower and rougher.

Another of the ROK soldiers in the meeting building. He's there in case the North Koreans try and break through the door behind him (I'm not sure why he isn't facing that way then, but that's what they told us. Perhaps he's there to stop us trying to defect to the North (like that would happen)).

More photos are here

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A Blast From The Past

For Google's tenth birthday they've put up a search of their old index from 2001 (it's not ten years ago, but it's the oldest they've got). It's interesting to have a look at how some thins have changed.

One of the big changes is the absence of Wikipedia. Today Wikipedia turns up in nearly every search you make, but was barely heard of back then. The same applies to IMDB.

Kevin Rudd has gone from being number 3 on the first page to being the whole first page. John Howard went from just being number one to being number one to five. Paris Hilton was apparently a hotel in France. An iPod was on of these. The "neil" was not Neil Armstrong but Neil Young¹. Wow had an entirely different meaning. Podcast was a word in czech but not any other languages.

Many terms relating to TV shows have had their results change a lot (Battlestar is a good example).

blog only returned about 76400 results in 2001, but now gives more than 3770000000.

Anyway, have a look and play around with it.

1 To be the "name" is to be the top result in google when you search for just the first name. E.g. Neil Armstrong is the Neil (it used to be Neil Gaiman), Sarah Palin is now the Sarah , and Kevin Rudd is the Kevin.

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Writing time: longer than necessary
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History Time

What notable event occurred on April 16, 1178 BC?

It turns out that this date is believed to be the day Odysseus returned home and slew the suitors of his wife Penelope.

Some researchers used a series of astronomical references in the Odyssey to narrow down the date. After analysis of the clues they came back with just one possible date.

This also seems to make it plausible that there is at least some basis in fact to the story. The consistency of the events adds credibility to the story, and it seems unlikely Homer was a great enough astronomer to get such details in his story correct. Of course, this is not to say that the story should be taken as entirely true (I'm pretty sure there aren't cyclops and witches who turn men into pigs), but certainly that someone had a big adventure on his way home from the Trojan War.

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Since Reconstruction?

I was just reading a list of 10 less well known facts about Barack Obama, and was a little puzzled by the language used in fact number 4. It reads as follows

4: Obama is the third African-American senator since Reconstruction.

Reading up on the topic on Wikipedia shows that he is actually the 5th, but that's not what I'm wondering about.

The thing I'm wondering about is why they make the point of starting to count African-American senators at the time of the Reconstruction. Why not just go from the founding of the US. It doesn't make the number that much bigger. To be blunt, there isn't a whole swath of pre-Reconstruction African-American senators that people are trying to hide. Why make the distinction?

Wikipedia states that there have been 5 African-American senators, the first of whom was Hiram Rhodes Revels who served the last year of another senators term in 1870. He has been followed by Blanche Kelso Bruce, Edward Brooke, Carol Moseley Braun, and the aformentioned Barack Obama.

While it is true that all the African-American senators have served after reconstruction, it seems odd to say the he is the 5th African-American senator since reconstruction, instead of just the 5th African-American senator. If Obama were to become president, he'd be called the first African-American president, not the first African-American president since reconstruction.

And yes, I realize that the Reconstruction was a big time of change in the status of African-Americans in America, but I still don't see why you should start counting at that time.

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Writing time: 32 minutes (includes research)
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Repeal Day

As the ad at the end of The Onion's podcast has been telling me for a week or so, today is the anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in America. The ad has only been part effective, because while I know it was an ad for some type of alcohol, I have no idea what brand or type it is.

Anyway, prohibition was a bad idea, and seems to have inspired some of the modern prohibitions on other chemicals people choose to indulge in, which are just as effective as the prohibition on alchohol back then was.

Anyway, cheers (or kampai, as the locals say).

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