Today we departed later than normal at 9:20. It gave me and Sophie time to call our friend Rujuta who lives back in Pittsburg. Then we got back on the bus to leave for the DMZ. It was a long ride there.

At the DMZ we got a quick tour from Ester of some statues and a train car. Then we were let go for lunch. A group of us went to this tiny restaurant and got food. I had kimchi dumplings. They weren’t as good as what I had yesterday though. Finally, we set off on a guided tour bus.

The first stop was the tunnel. North Korea had dug tunnels under the DMZ to potentially invade South Korea, but now it is a tourist attraction. It was a 350m walk down into the earth. The stone started to drip with water. It felt cold to touch but not slimy. Then we went into the tiny part of the tunnel, the tall guys had to bend and almost everyone hit their head (sadly me included) but I never really had to duck more than just dip my chin down. It was about a 10 min walk in this tiny tunnel all to see through a window the North Korea side. We weren’t allowed phones in a lot of these places, so I don’t have pictures. And the way up was the worst thing ever! 350m incline, my hips hurt the next day.

Then we went to the observatory area. You could see North Korea! They had big binoculars and you could make out the flag of North Korea with it. You could see it! This country that I read about in the news all the time as an enemy and testing bombs and missiles I could see and its flag. But you would never know you cross the border if there wasn’t a big fence there. It’s odd that they made this a tourist attraction. They even had a gift shop. Also, no pictures up there either. A kid in our group tried to take one and swarmed him and made him delete it. 

After the DMZ we drove for about an hour to the baseball stadium. And this place was surprisingly huge and indoors. Before the game started a group of us went to the Heroes store (that was the home team) and I didn’t buy anything but there was cool stuff there. But when I came back all the non-breaded chicken we had ordered was gone and only breaded was left. Which I can’t eat so I walked around with Maddie and Sophie looking for food settled on French fries. Then got back to the game as it started. 

For the amount of baseball played I didn’t actually watch a lot of it. There were chants for each player’s name and a little dance to go along with it. Chris bought us little bats that you wave during the chants. I loved it!!!! I had so much fun. My favorite was this little chant for I don’t know who it was for, but it had like a wave motion and was fun to do. Then we found an American player on one of the teams so when he hit the ball everyone in the group was just screaming “USA USA USA”. Then some people tried to get his attention by going near the railing and it didn’t work because the safety person told them to leave. But finally, we got his attention from our seats and he waved. Overall, I loved it! It was so fun to dance along with the crowd.