Sunday, August 5

Chandler and I took the train into Imgen to take a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). We left after cleaning up around Memorial Hall and lunch. Although it only took us about 45 minutes by train to get there, by the time we walked to the train station, waited for it to arrive and make three million stops, then walked to the ticket office, the last tour of the day had just left 10 minutes ago. Before we headed to the ticket office, I asked the ticket guy at the Imgen station how frequently the train ran back to Tanyheon (stop for Ilsan). He said something about 50 minutes and stressed it several times; I thanked him and we headed for the DMZ ticket office (I looked at my watch and somehow calculated that the next train would arrive at 4:00 pm). It was about 3:10 when we arrived and found that the last tour was gone, so we decided to get something to eat then head back to the train station. As we approached the station we could hear a train leaving; it was too late to run and my heart sunk. We would now have to wait for an hour for the next train. The ticket guy scolded me when we purchased our tickets! He said something again about 50, and I discovered that me meant that the trains ran on 50 minutes to the hour, not on the hour. Okay, lesson learned and we will try this again next week.