The bus drove around Seoul then up along the western coast of South Korea. North of Seoul we started seeing razor wire bordering the water. We couldn't figure out why but then realized it's probably because some of the islands off the west coast are still in dispute between North and South Korea.
At Camp Bonifas we received temporary UN guest I.D. tags, followed by a short briefing on the history of the DMZ and what we would see on the tour. Then we got on an ROK (Republic of Korea) Army bus and drove to the House of Peace and the Freedom House, both on the southern side of the MDL (Military Demarcation Line) within the DMZ (don't you love all the acronyms). (The white polls mark the location of the MDL.) 
The House of Peace is for non-military meetings between North and South and we saw it only from the outside. We entered the Freedom House next to it, built in 1998 as a place for reunions between families who were separated on opposite sides after the war. Too bad it has never been used for a single reunion. We were told that the North won't let its families come to the Freedom House on the southern side of the DMZ because they're afraid of their people defecting to the South. There wasn't much to see in Freedom House, just a big empty building, but we had to walk through it to get to the JSA (Joint Security Area), which is a special area outside administrative control of either North or South Korea.
It was here at the JSA that the Armistace was negotiated and signed. The MDL runs through the middle of the blue meeting buildings. The line of microphone wires on the conference table traces the path of the MDL. It was here that we were able to step into North Korea for a few moments. (To the right of the South Korean soldier is North Korea.)
Next we drove through Checkpoint Charlie to get to Checkpoint 3 that was surrounded on 3 sides (in the distance) by North Korea. We could see the world's largest flagpole and a little bit of Propaganda Village on the North Korean side, so named because loudspeakers used to blast propaganda messages until 2004.
Supposedly the village is fake, no one lives there and some of the buildings don't even have back sides to them. It's just for appearances to keep up with the South, which has Freedom Village inside the DMZ (although it's a real village where people live and earn ~80,000 U.S. dollars a year, but they must be present in the village for 240 days of the year to maintain their village residency. Women can marry into the village, men cannot.) Oh, and isn't the name "Freedom Village" the South's form of propaganda? Of course the tour guide never mentioned that.The bus also stopped at the Bridge of No Return, which crosses the MDL. After the 1953 Armistice Agreement, prisoners of war from both sides were exchanged on this bridge. It's called the Bridge of No Return because the prisoners were given the choice whether to cross to the other side or not, but whatever choice they made they couldn't go back. If they crossed to the North they were stuck there forever, and vice versa.
The rest of the trip involved lunch at a Korean restaurant, a trip to the 3rd infiltration tunnel, the DMZ Museum, and the Dora Observatory (no pictures allowed in the tunnel, or Dora Observatory past a certain point). The tunnel was dug by the North and discovered by the South in October 1978. We were only able to walk maybe 300-400 meters of the full length of the tunnel, after which it was blocked off. It was pretty cold down there, but not much to see.Overall an informative trip.
