Cheorwon Peace Observatory

"Now, as life stirs in the once-frozen earth, you may wonder how Cheorwon's flower buds have stretched awake, and whether peace has arrived along with spring. Frozen solid one moment and quietly melting the next, Cheorwon's winter and spring bear a striking resemblance to our own lives. This is a place that carries a quiet melancholy, conveying the beauty of spring while having to soothe wounds not yet healed, tracing the crossing curves of joy and sorrow. Into the Civilian Control Line of Cheorwon, where people live dreaming of coexistence, spring comes rushing in with open arms. The DMZ Crane Peace Town on Yangji 2-gil in Dongsong-eup, Cheorwon-gun, is one of the starting points for DMZ peace tourism in the Cheorwon area. From here, a course takes in the Cheorwon Peace Observatory, Woljeong-ri Station, and the Second Tunnel, all located within the Civilian Control Line. After buying tickets, visitors travel in their own vehicles under the guidance of a tour leader, and the warning lights mounted on the cars lend a tension unlike any other kind of tour. Passing through the Civilian Control Line checkpoint and drawing one step closer to that forbidden boundary, you arrive at the Cheorwon Peace Observatory, which looks out over the Demilitarized Zone, the Pyeonggang Plateau, and a propaganda village. A monorail carries you conveniently up to the observatory as you take in the surrounding scenery. The observatory consists of an exhibition hall on the first floor and a viewing room on the second, and the usual route is to gaze out at distant North Korean land from the second floor and then tour the exhibits. From the observatory, the vast Pyeonggang Plateau rises in the distance like a folding screen wrapped around the surroundings, standing up like an embankment. Below it spreads the Pungcheonwon Plain, encompassing Cheorwon and Pyeonggang. It is both a migratory bird habitat of Cheorwon and the site of the Taebong Kingdom's fortress capital, founded by Gungye, who established Later Goguryeo. Gungye's dream of unifying the Later Three Kingdoms was never realized, but traces of the fortress capital remain on the Pungcheonwon Plain. Using the high-precision telescopes in the viewing room, you can fill your eyes with historic battle sites such as Camel Hill, Bloody Ridge, and Kim Il-sung Highland, along with the untouched nature of the Demilitarized Zone, a sight that draws spontaneous admiration. The first-floor exhibition hall features displays on the Battle of Baengmagoji Hill, the fiercest of the Korean War, a Second Tunnel experience, the history of the Cheorwon battles, and a virtual journey through North Korea. This is a place where you can come to understand both war and peace. Cheorwon was where the fighting was most ferocious among all the Civilian Control Line areas of Korea bordering the DMZ fence. Baengmagoji Hill in particular was the scene of a fierce ten-day battle beginning on October 6, 1952, during which the hill, only 395 meters above sea level, changed hands no fewer than 24 times. Originally a small, nameless hill on one slope of Hyoseong Mountain, it came to be called Baengmagoji Hill, or White Horse Hill, because the relentless shelling of the time toppled every tree along its ridge, leaving it stripped bare and white, so that from the sky it looked like a white horse lying down. The battle left around 3,500 South Korean and some 10,000 Chinese casualties, and with roughly 280,000 shells reportedly falling here, the scale is hard to imagine. When South Korean forces brought this brutal battle to a victorious close, the Cheorwon Plain became the land of the Republic of Korea. Baengmagoji Hill is off-limits today, but a memorial battlefield site honoring the battle has been established in the southern area within view of the hill. It includes a memorial monument honoring the souls of those who fell in the Battle of Baengmagoji Hill, a memorial hall displaying records and artifacts from the time of the battle, a commemorative monument, and a memorial tower. Now closed, Woljeong-ri Station is the railway station nearest to the Southern Limit Line of the Demilitarized Zone. It was the northernmost station on the Gyeongwon Line running from Seoul to Wonsan. Beside a sign reading ""The iron horse longs to run"" stand the wreckage of a North Korean freight train destroyed by bombing during the Korean War, along with the No. 4001 locomotive used at the time to tow the derailed train, conveying the tragedy of the war. The Gyeongwon Line was an industrial railway connecting Seoul and Wonsan over 221.4 kilometers, serving as a trunk line that carried agricultural products from Cheorwon and seafood from Wonsan, among other goods. Originally located north of the Civilian Control Line, the station building was relocated to its present site and restored in 1988 for the purpose of security tourism. Nearby, the King Gungye Taebong Kingdom History Park has been established. The Second Tunnel, discovered in the Demilitarized Zone along the Military Demarcation Line, was a tunnel dug by North Korea for a surprise invasion of the South. A South Korean sentry on guard duty heard the sound of explosions underground, and modern equipment was used to drill and confirm the tunnel's location. After dozens of days of excavation, it was discovered on March 19, 1975, the second such tunnel found within the South Korean area. Lying in a solid granite layer at a depth of 50 to 160 meters underground, the tunnel runs a total of 3.5 kilometers, of which 1.1 kilometers was dug south of the Military Demarcation Line. An arched tunnel two meters high, it was specially designed to allow large-scale infiltration of about 30,000 heavily armed troops along with field artillery and other equipment in a single hour, making it a striking site of North Korean provocation. The Seungni Observatory stands at the very front line, on the hill in front of Mahyeon 2-ri village in Geunnam-myeon, Cheorwon-gun. Located 108 kilometers from Seoul and 74 kilometers from Chuncheon, it sits at the exact center of the 155-mile Armistice Line. From here, Daeseong Mountain, Jeokgeun Mountain, and Samcheon Mountain come into full view, while across to North Korea you can take in sights such as Oseong Mountain, a fierce battlefield during the Korean War, and the Geumseong area of North Korea. In particular, you can clearly see the Geumgangsan electric railway tracks, now buried under weeds. Opened by Cheorwon-gun on February 18, 2002, the Seungni Observatory is staffed by tour guides who manage it."