I never intended to look for Taeyang in this city of Seoul, among these specific flocks of night crawlers (well, I did flipped through the whole glamorous two-kilogram G-Dragon & Taeyang in Paris photo book in Incheon last time I transited here so…). So here I were in this crazily crowded Itaewon, at 3:00 AM in the morning, getting pushed around by packs and packs of nocturnal Taeyang-look-alike Seoulites, hopping from bars to bars, from clubs to clubs, I guess nobody was just walking around like me, trying to take in all of this Seoulistic madness. But I loved it, something screamed “wow” for me! Seoul is like an elite offspring of East and West, think about where all of Asian beauties being preserved in an Abercrombie model, where the only second place on Earth you can get is Australia (the people, not the place), but better in so many ways since it’s Asia it feels like home. I noticed small things like the way all of the road layouts and traffic laws are exactly the same as in America, but the lanes are so narrow, ding ding ding “Asia!!!”, right. But this is not about Seoul, well to some extends, but this is all about me standing there, in the middle of this sea of people, suddenly thought about what is it like, getting hit by a missile from the other side, just 60 kilometers away. “Do you mind?”, I blurted out of my zoned-out moment. Since obviously nobody even cared, I reached out for an answer only 4 hours laters, getting myself all the way to the Joint Security Area at the North-South Border within the Demilitarized Zone.

Something struck me a few days ago, on my way to the Namsan tower, I was going to have a love lock for myself, yayyyyyy!!! Oppa saranghea, this Korean drama brainwashing is making me sick, given all of its stupidity. But you would have a lock for your eternal love on the Pont des Arts footbridge when you get to Paris anyway, so you do what you need to do. So there was a young couple holding hands, walking up this narrow steep street, intending to “lock” their love just like me. It struck me right away, the young guy was in military uniform, and so proud of it. This is probably what you see in America only, right at the airports with those “welcome to board anytime” and “thank you for serving the country” airline announcements. Well he should be! They also looked very nice in their glorious youth, but I kept noticing the military uniform, it looked good! Korean people know how to make things look good, even their own faces. The same thing struck me when I got to the Joint Security Area, Korean soldiers’ uniform looks way better than the other ones’.

“How did you end up here?”, trying to be funny and friendly, I asked Lt. M. who accompanied us, the visiting group, as a guide (you must be taken care of by an army personnel everywhere you go). “I got hand picked”, said a young charismatic US soldier from New York serving in the United Nations Command Security Battalion. In fact they all get picked, especially the Korean soldiers standing post at the border. They must be in shape, 6-feet tall and well, good looking so that “they look intimidating to the KPA” (Korean Public’s Army a.k.a the North) said Lt. M. I found it somehow way too funny when he said the “intimidating” word. You mean all of these soldiers? With that K-Pop look all over their faces? Intimidating? HA!!! But they did looked good with those short pants, aviator sunglasses, a sleek armband and one hell of a stylish helmet! “Chic” army it is, wait, is that even appropriate to say so? I started to wonder whether the ROK (Republic of Korea a.k.a the South) army shares the same styling crew with YG Entertainment. Come on, can I just have those G-Dragon super slim fit pants and furry overcoats for the whole infantry unit, please!!!

So this Korean soldier saluted me, I was taken back a little bit. “I know, right” said Lt. M., “They salute everyone, I mean, you only salute officers, right”, but actually I thought he was just new to the job, maybe just fresh out of high school or something, and now he’s here, all about “In Front of Them All”, the slogan that everybody here is so proud about. There were a lot of information to learn about this place. I remembered something about someone got killed by an axe over chopping down a tree in a sensitive area, and there was some kind of brawl where people actually shot each other here (hey, I’m not a freaking historian nerd, ok!). So it was not a show, not at all!!! Tension was in the air and war could break out at any minutes. I saw sweats on the guarding soldiers’ face, were they too tense standing face-to-face to the enemy over just a bar of concrete called “border”? Well, maybe not, maybe it was just hot and I was just too sensitive. But I was a little bit tense myself, too, when Lt. M. asked us, the visiting group, to stand in one line facing the border. I was like, what, getting executed by the KPA firing squad?!? But in fact, it was an opportunity to take photographs. So here you go.

It was not easy to snap a photo around here, almost everywhere was restricted due to military sensitivity. During the briefing session they also mentioned about avoid using flash because North soldiers might think you’re attacking them, and they also said something about North people doing propaganda?!? North people are not the Flintstones, come on, they know what a flash is! But that is one good thing about South Korean people, they made this so entertaining just like visiting the zoo. It just that you don’t get to photo the monkey. Is that why North soldiers didn’t stand at their posts while I was there? The same feeling when I got my head hit for like 10 times under the low ceiling of the Third Infiltration Tunnel, where the North dug all the way under the DMZ for future surprise attack on the South. Upon finding out about this, South people used a huge massive tunnel driller (probably made by Samsung?!?), think The Matrix Revolutions, and drilled all the way 75 meters down to the tunnel, putting 3 gigantic unbreakable steel barriers, and made this into another tourist attraction so that I could get my head hit for fun (lucky I got my helmet on) crawling under this tunnel that so many North people might have had to dig using their hands. I mean that’s why they hate each other. Let’s see whether my neighbor can do this to me, game on!!!

So as I was writing this entry, I realized that, for the trip, in no time I already ended up at the gift shop (yeah, gift shop) and totally forgot to ask about the missile question!!! While I hated the fact that the South had developed the JSA to the point of no return (hellooo, army’s Lotte World here, come play!!!), I could not resist the temptation of buying a pack of chocolate nuts homegrown within the DMZ, one of the most well-preserved habitats in the world. It tasted so good that I had to ask myself whether it would be this good had I not known about where it came from. Would it be any different had it grown on the other side?… So wait for me, Mr. Kim, I’ll be there very soon or maybe to make it happen easier and sooner, I’ll just go see The Interview when it is out!