Explore Gyeonggi and Gangwon
If you’re bored with temples, war museums and national parks, the area around JEONGDONGJIN (정동진) has some more unusual attractions which should float your boat, if you’ll pardon the pun. Near this small, windswept coastal village lie two retired nautical vessels – an American warship from the Korean War, and an equally authentic North Korean submarine. From Gangneung, trains make the short trip down the coast, much of which is cordoned off with barbed wire, before stopping at what is apparently the world’s closest train station to the sea. A short stretch of sand separates the track from the water, and it’s here that Korean couples flock to hold hands and watch the sunrise – the area was featured in Sandglass, a romantic Korean soap opera (truly a truism, since all Korean soap operas are romantic).
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Espionage in the East Sea
Espionage in the East Sea
Those who deem the Cold War long-finished should cast their minds back to September 1996. On the fourteenth, a submarine containing 26 North Korean spies arrived at Amin, on South Korea’s Gangwon coast. Three disembarked, and made it back to the submarine after completing their surveillance mission on the Air Force base near Gangneung, but the waves were particularly strong that day and the sub came a cropper on the rocks. Eleven non-military crew members were killed by the soldiers, lest they leaked classified information to the South, and important documents were incinerated inside the vessel – the ceiling of the cabin in question is still charred with burnt North Korean spy material. The remaining fifteen soldiers attempted to return to the North overland, with their Southern counterparts understandably keen to stop them; the mission continued for 49 days, during which seventeen South Korean soldiers and civilians lost their lives. Thirteen of the spies were killed, one was captured, and the whereabouts of the last remains a mystery.
