A survey of the highly intelligent, robotic, super-dooper-efficient Japanese.  From the unique J style to the pop’n streets of Tokyo, I’m hit’n up the middle of Japan doing drive by’s so you can get a taste of the other side.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula used as a buffer zone between North and South Korea.  The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel    and the east end lying north of it. It is 250 kilometres (160 miles)    long, approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide and is the most heavily militarized border in the world. The Northern Limit Line, or NLL, is the de facto maritime boundary between North and South Korea in the Yellow Sea and the coastline and islands on both sides of the NLL are also heavily militarized.

On November 15th, 1974, the South discovered incursion tunnels that  ran under the DMZ dug out by North Korea this was indicated by the  direction of the blasting lines within each tunnel.  They claimed the  tunnels were used for coal mining, however, there was no coal to be  found within the granite tunnel walls.  After the discovery the North  went back into the tunnels and painted some of the walls black as an  attempt to give the appearance of black coal.

The first tunnel was discovered by a South Korean Army patrol who  noticed steam rising from the ground.  The initial discovery was met  with gunfire from North Korea.  Inside the tunnels were weapon storage  and sleeping areas.

By March 30, 1980 four tunnels were discovered pointing to Seoul,  Korea from the North.  Based on the tunnel’s size, approximately 2000  KPA soldiers (one regiment) could pass through it per hour.

The Joint Security Area also known as the JSA is often called the  ”Truce Village” where both the South and North conduct diplomatic  engagements.  The line on the table indicates the border of which South  and North Korea meet.  There were incidents of North Korean soldiers  attempting to sabotage South Korean soldiers by trying to pull them in  through doors on the other side of the building, and also using the  South Korean national flag as handkerchiefs to taunt them.

At the time of this visit we were scheduled to see the “Bridge of No  Return” but there were random dead dogs showing up on the bridge in the past week, so they wouldn’t allow us to go near there.  The soldiers  thought it was a tactic to get some sort of attention.

Awww yeah…Tsukiji fish market at 5 in the morn’n, cracka dawn’n yawn’n with tears in my eyes…Who eat’s sushi at 5am?  Apparently everyone in Tokyo does.  Breaking out from the clubs, karaoke rooms, and bars the locals and tourists alike stumble into the world renown sushi bar to get a taste of some of the best fish in the world.  Literally FOB (Fresh OFF the Boat) it’ll make you cry its sooooooo GOOD.  The bar seating only about 14 heads at a time demands a 45 minute to an hour wait outside the glass peepshow like door.  Crammed like a can of sardines we wait for the sushi mama-san to give us permission to take our seats across from the sushi masters.  Until then…we just sip on our drool as the line slooowly gets shorter.