Max Magliari 5/16/26

Today we headed to the DMZ, which has been the part of the trip that I have been looking forward to the most. The first thing we did when we got there was sit down with a North Korean defector who shared her story with our group. She defected in 2019 along with 11 family members. To get out, her husband had to bribe border guards with US dollars just to cross the river into China safely. From there, they paid Chinese brokers $7,000 per person to make it from China to Mongolia, where they stayed in a refugee camp. A friend of her husband who had already defected helped support them through the process. She told us that after COVID, North Korea and China both significantly tightened security at the border, and that it would now cost around $150,000 to attempt the same journey, with Chinese brokers largely unwilling to help at all. It is nearly impossible now.

She also described the intelligence screening process after arriving in South Korea, where agents asked extremely detailed questions like the names of her teachers and which school she attended. That process took two months. She said she misses her family and North Korean cold noodles, but that she is happy and lives better now than politicians do back in North Korea.

After that we headed into the DMZ and visited the Third Infiltration Tunnel. The tunnel was built by North Korea and discovered in 1978 after a defector tipped off South Korean authorities. It runs 1,635 meters total, sits about 73 meters below ground, and North Korea had painted the walls black in an attempt to disguise it as a coal mine if it was ever found. It is the closest of the four known tunnels to Seoul, sitting about 52 kilometers from the South Korean capital. The tunnel was designed to move up to 30,000 troops per hour directly toward Seoul, built as part of a plan to launch a surprise underground invasion of South Korea. You wear a hard hat going in and have to walk hunched over for a good stretch of it. By the time you reach the bottom you are at the closest point any visitor can physically get to North Korea, standing at a barrier just meters from the border itself.

Then we got to look into North Korea from an observation deck. It was surreal in a way that is hard to put into words. Looking at a country with the stigma that North Korea carries and actually seeing it with your own eyes did not feel real. I could not stop staring at the enormous North Korean flag flying in the distance. We also got to see the giant antenna in the mountains that is responsible for cutting North Korea off from the outside world. We were not allowed to take photos, so the images in this post were taken during a few years ago when the rules were different.

Shoutout to our tour guide Grace, who taught me so much about the history of Korea throughout the day. 

When we got back to Seoul the city was ready for a parade for Buddha's Birthday. Over 100,000 marchers carried lanterns through the route, joined by traditional music, dance, and participants dressed in hanbok. The streets right outside our hotel were completely packed, and it was a great thing to witness.

To close out the night a group of us did karaoke for the first time. I did not know exactly what to expect but it was an absolute blast and we all had so much fun that we are already going back the very next night. My favorite moment was a duet with Jack Eaton where we sang Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield, which I will remember for a while. Also a big shoutout to Zach Siegel, who has a beautiful voice.