In the Soul of Seoul!!!

Hi family and friends!!!!!!!!!!! I am in Seoul, South Korea. I love it here because there is so much shopping and a lot of fun, plus terrific weather. And we have TWO friends here: Kristina and Eric. We have done a lot of fun things together!!!!! Kristina is our framily (thats a friend who is family) and Eric is daddy's friend from basketball.

My favorite thing we did here was go to the DMZ. Did you know that North Korea has made lots of tunnels to try and get to South Korea?

At the DMZ I learned that that is a place where you can look out and you can see North Korea in the DMZ. DMZ stands for De Militarized Zone. I learned that North Korea has dug 4 tunnels to South Korea. I will tell you all about our trip to the DMZ.

First I will tell you about what the DMZ is. The DMZ is a space between North and South Korea that is peaceful. After the Korean war they agreed that they would have a safe place called the DMZ. South Koreans and South Korean tourists can only go up to a certain place. From one place you can look at North Korea through binoculars. Some times you can even see cars and people! I did not see any though.

Remember the tunnels I talked about before? I'm going to tell you about them now. North Korea made the tunnels by using lots of little TNT sticks. They would find a crack or a hole in the rock and spray paint it yellow. The yellow indicated thet they should put TNT there. Then South Korea found the first tunnel. You may be wondering how they found it so I will tell you. The designer for the first tunnel didn't want to die in the explosions so he escaped and told South Korea about the tunnels. They put PVC pipes in the ground vertically so the ground was blocking one end. Then they put water in and waited 4 years and when the TNT exploded underground it put pressure on the PVC pipe and it exploded above ground. Then South Korea dug 72 meters down (which is 22 stories!!!!!) to get to the tunnel. We got to go into one of the tunnels and at the end of the tunnel it was as close to North Korea as you can get. The DMZ was fun and I enjoyed it.

The day before the DMZ we went to this amazing indoor park called Lotte World. There were a lot of rides and my favorite one was this really scary one that was a flight simulator. There were lots of different worlds in the flight simulator. There was a dream world that had lots of little rock pools connected by water falls. Another was also a canyon one where the rocks started collapsing and then 3 huge T-rexs appeared and then the floor opened up into lava and then a huge lava rock T-rex appeared and chased us into the next world. I went on that one with Eric and Kristina.

Another one that we went on was a dragon shooting one. It was really fun. The final one that we went on was a sheriff game. It took place in the wild west and we had to stop all the burglars.

It was the best having 2 friends with us in Seoul. Having Kristina around was like having a big sister. We shared a room and we laughed together a lot. I love Kristina a lot and I miss her. Having Eric around was like Daddy times 2!!!!!!! And Eric is a famous basketball player here so he got a lot of attention but he was still really nice to all of us. I hope we get to see Eric again soon.

I really liked Seoul and we are leaving tomorrow. We are going to Busan and then Jeju Island.

I miss you all and am getting so so so so so so so excited to see you all next month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Ginny