I was browsing the news sites today, as I do, and I came across this interesting one.
North Korea willing to hold talks with US
Now, the article itself is pretty standard stuff, but what I found interesting was the photo they have on the right. I assume that article isn't going to last forever, so I've grabbed a screenshot and I've cut'n'pasted it below:
Now, they make out that this is a South Korean soldier using binoculars to look at the North, as if it's some kind of high-tech military equipment or something... well, when I saw that photo, I thought it looked a bit familiar.
On my last trip to Korea, we visited Imjingak. It's open to tourists and there's a resturant, a lookout point, some statues and art and all sorts of stuff. There's actually this monument to a train which used to run from the very south of the peninsula right up to the north which (obviously) no longer runs. The inscription on the monument to the train is quite moving.
Anyway, here's a photo I took while I was there:
This is actually the best photo of the things I wanted to point out. If you look at the top of the photo, on the roof of the building, there's all these tourists. And what's that they're using?
Yes! It seems the tourists are using the exact same binoculars as that "soldier"! In fact, if you zoom in on the article, you can actually see the slot where you put the coins in the binoculars:
Now, my theory is that, in Korea, you're not usually allowed to take photographs of military installations. So I guess they just found a couple of off-duty soliders (even when off-duty, the soliders are not allowed to take the uniforms off) and took them to the tourist lookout to take a photo. It's kind of ruined the illusion for me, though. You often see photos like this and now I'll be forever questioning the legitimacy of them. A sad day for me.
...
Eh, I'm sure I'll get over it!