DMZ and I'm still alive!

Today I went to one of the biggest tourist hot-spots in Korea--the DMZ. This stands for the demilitarized zone. This area divides the two Koreas, is heavily protected by barbed wire fences, watch towers, and landmines. It stretches approximately 248 km in length (east/west) and 4 km in width (north/south). It has been untouched by humans for more than 50 years, and therefore has become a haven for plants, wildlife and endangered species. Korea is the only remaining divided country left in the world.
The DMZ is about an hour north of Seoul, and I went with a tour group of mostly Westerners called "Adventure Korea". It snowed for the first time last night, and today was the coldest day since I've arrived (figures, I was outside all day!). It was bitter.
Basically, the DMZ is the closest I can get to North Korea without entering. I was told that Americans aren't even allowed to go into North Korea. I could see it though, from where we were. North Korea has the largest flag in the world standing at the border. It's even in the Guiness Book of World Records. North and South Korea basically had a pissing contest, each country whipping out a bigger flag until they called a truce (and North Korea won).
I was able to see many monuments to American soldiers who fought in the Korean war, which was very somber. There was also a freedom bridge, a peace bell, and many planes, tanks, missiles, etc...that were used in the war. I was even able to get my passport stamped at the last train station to the north in Korea! It was all pretty cool.
It's funny that it's such a big tourist spot, being that the tension between the countries is still stong. We weren't allowed to take pictures beyond a certain yellow line, and there were guards watching us look at North Korea. I wasn't able to get pictures of the big flags. Sad. We got to go into the 3rd tunnel, a tunnel that North Koreans dug about a mile into South Korea (and was discovered in 1990 by South koreans) that would allow 10,000 armed soldiers or 30,000 unarmed soldiers invade Seoul in an hour. They believe there are still at least 20 tunnels that the North Koreans have dug that are still undiscovered. (couldn't take pictures in that either). We had to wear hard hats and crouch down a bit. North Koreans must be short.
FYI-- Kim Jong-il joined us for lunch. He's pretty cool. He drinks a lot though. All right, again, not true...but again, it makes my story much more interesting.
All in all, it was pretty cool. I would like to go back when it's not so darn cold!