If you do want to do so, there are tours available to the Joint Security Area near Panmunjom where the agreement was signed, and it’s possible to enter the building where this took place and cross the border which runs through the middle of the hall – so you could step foot on at least a few yards of North Korea.
From a linguistic point of view, Jeju Island is interesting as the traditional speech there may well be a separate language from Korean – it’s apparently so different that it’s not mutually intelligible and so calling it a dialect may be stretching things. However, as in many places, competence in this traditional speech seems to be limited to a number of mostly older speakers.
Other than that, I’m afraid I don’t know much about places to see in Korea.
My husband and I visted Seoul and Busan (in the south). There is an excellent express train service between the two. Neither of us speak any Korean, but there was enough signage in English to enable us to manage. There are also good metro underground train systems in both cities.
In Seoul we visited the Gyeongbokgung Palace. In Busan we went to a Buddhist temple right on the coast (which apparently is unusual in Korea as mostly the temples are in the hills) and to the Haeundae Beach and the Busan Aquarium. As we were there for an academic conference, that was all we had time for in terms of specific tourist attractions, but in Seoul we also things like visit a local park and climbed up the hill to the N Seoul Tower, which is quite a distinctive shape.
Could there be a greater contrast than a Kimchi Factory visit and a visit to the Demilitarized Zone? Thanks @louis, @philipnewton and @margarethall for your ideas. Any others gratefully received.
