韓国

This photo was taken during our visit to South Korea. We took a tour to the 'Demilitarised Zone' which is a stretch of land controlled by the United Nations separating North and South Korea, who are still technically at war. In this current political state, no Koreans are allowed to travel across the border and consequently this tour is only available to people holding a non-Korean passport, so we took the opportunity to visit as we thought not many people would be able to say that they'd seen over the border into North Korea.

When we got to the U.N. base we were warned not to make any gestures to the guards standing across the border so as not to provoke them into opening fire on us, and
each had to sign a disconcerting document absolving the U.N. of any blame in the event of our death!!

I was under the impression we would only be able to see into North Korea, but we managed to go one better - we were unexpectedly allowed to enter a room used for peace talks, half of which was in South Korea and the other half in North Korea - so in the above photo, I am standing in North Korea while Tomoko is in South Korea! Neat!

Imperial Palace, 東京

Today was the emperor's birthday and one of only two days in the year when the Imperial Palace grounds are open to the public, so we went along to Tokyo station to join in the celebrations. We each got given a Japanese flag and made our way through the palace gardens to a balcony in the main courtyard where the royal family came out to wave to the crowd!



(L-R) Julie, Claire, myself & Meghan