consider the birds...

No one lives in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ),
the 2.5 mile buffer that divides North and South Korea.
But due to human inactivity for the past 50 years,
this area has become a pristine wildlife refuge that is
filled with animals such as the red-crowned crane.
Irony is that this rare bird, the perfect image of purity and peace
thrives in this highly tense and most fortified border on earth.
More than a million soldiers here face each other with enough
artillery to annihilate each other in minutes.
The land is covered with land mines and over a thousand
Koreans and Americans have died in skirmishes in the past 50 years.
All tourists entering the DMZ must sign a liability form stating,
"The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action." Yet it is still a huge tourist attraction.
It's weird to think that I am about 30 miles away from all of this.

Technically, N. & S. Korea are still at war because they never did sign
a peace treaty, just a ceasefire in 1953. At that time, my Dad was
4 years old and my grandmother fled to South Korea with him and his brothers. People today still die trying to make their escape from the insane regime.

Today the president of South Korea crossed the DMZ and met with
Kim Jong Il, being the first South Korean leader to do so.